Respect/Ability

Williamsburg, Brooklyn: A Journey/Winesburg, Ohio by Sherwood Anderson

An Altered Book, mixed media, 2003

Chapter 12: Respectability.

words (hidden in the tiny hatchmarks)

believe

RESPECT

ABILITY

no more hiding/I say no more hiding/ I am done

On the eve of the eve of nanowrimo, the eve of all sorts of life changes, the eve of the constant work of creating myself, I like this reminder.

The chapter is called "Respectability" which points to something that others think about you. But my chapter is about Respect/Ability... which in a way, at least in this chapter, is about our own thoughts about ourselves.

I get very scared about going for the things I really want.

I am afraid that I am not good enough to succeed.

I am afraid that I am not strong enough to bear it if I don't.

So I have a tendency to avoid committing fully to my dreams.

But the truth is, if we respect our own abilities, the ability to think it through, the ability to live up to the challenges, the ability to create something beautiful, the ability to roll with the punches, the ability to revision and redesign, then going for those thrilling, frightening dreams doesn't have to be so scary.

We don't have to get it all right. We don't have to do it perfectly without stumbles. We don't have to win.

No. We don't have to win. We don't have to be successes. What about that? Is that confrontational? I find it a little confrontational.

We don't have to succeed, we just have to live. We just have to love what we love and run with the beast of our hearts.

My beast wants to take chances and try those things I am afraid of.

My beast wants to write my novels and to get an agent and to be published. My beast wants people to read my books. Oh gosh. No, it doesn't. My beast wants to write stories and get wrapped up in the worlds. Fill journals and paint pictures. My ego is the one that wants to be published.

But if it doesn't work out?

My ego might be crushed, but my beast will be just as happy to continue writing nanowrimo novels and blogging and telling my kids stories and drawing pictures and teaching people. Right?

Oh I don't know. Somehow, I feel that if I believe in my own heart and respect my own abilities, I can be happy with what I do, without public recognition.

What about you? Do you need the win to feel worthy? Or are you okay with just following the beast of your heart, damn publication, damn critical acclaim. Damn riches and wealth?

Are you looking for respectability in the eyes of the world, or are you content to respect your own abilities, and live in your own skin?

Adventures

Williamsburg, Brooklyn; A Journey/Winesburg, Ohio by Sherwood Anderson
An Altered Book, Mixed Media 2003

Chapter 11 Adventure

Here she is, Flying Girl. Jumping and falling and flying and gaining powers and becoming herself. It's so funny to see Flying Girl in other stages of my life. She first appeared when I was in college, but keeps popping up.

This is another timely chapter to my book, because I have to say I am freaked out.

It's looking like the move to California, knock on wood, might actually happen soon, (crossing fingers). It has been postponed again and again and I am kind of at my wit's end about it all. But the possibility of it happening soon is scaring the hell out of me.

I'm a nester. I sit and make my spot in life comfortable. I collect things and get myself a comfy chair and a lot of books and I cook nice food and paint things to put on the walls.

But this move will be a blank slate. A fresh start. From zero, pretty much.

I don't know anything about California except what I see in tv and movies and read in books and hear from distant friends. It sounds cool and all... but it won't be anything like what my life used to be like. Of course, my life now isn't what it used to be like.
Last night I had a hard time sleeping envisioning it.

But I know that the way to handle this kind of fear is to reframe your thinking.

The unkown can be scary... it is true... but you want to know what else it can be? Say it with me.

An ADVENTURE.

Rather than focusing on how frightening it can be to be in completely new surroundings, cut off from the familiar, I am going to focus on the adventure of it. The discovery. The possibilities.

I've never seen the Pacific.

That's exciting.

Or San Francisco.

That's exciting.

I'm looking forward to adventures in thrifting and yardsaling. I love that kind of stuff. I am looking forward to decorating a home.

Come to think of it, I am looking forward to being without all the stuff that often keeps us back. Sometimes it is literal stuff, all the posessions that we hold onto and that keep us in a certain place, sometimes it is our psychological stuff.


When you are in a completely unknown place, without all of those people and places and activities and habits that have shaped your life, are you not free to create the life of your dreams?

This scary move into the unknown, is it not just a super adventure and the chance to focus on all those things I've always wanted to focus on?

Maybe my super powers will be set free. Like this flying girl in her chapter here.

Oh. PS. On the nanowrimo front. Yesterday was a good day. I started off early and made a list of things I had to do, and then... I did them. I know, I know, novel concept. But the more small steps I too towards doing these things, the less they were scary and overwhelming.

I am on stage 4 of the snowflake outline method, and probably won't get to the end, but I never have gotten to the end of that. And I would totally be able to start this baby tonight if it were November 1st. What I'd really like to do is finish my 50k words by the middle of November, so if I do actually move by the end of November, which is one of the possibilities, then I won't have to deal with packing and writing a novel and moving and freaking out all at once.

I have decided the 100 hours in 100 days concept is not working for me. Sadly. I think I'm going to have to let the concept go for these last 100 days of 2009. It's not working. I gave myself the wrong challenge, I think. 100 hours of writing did not work out. It's possible that it is because of the timing and the moving and the upheaval and nanowrimo and everything else that's happening. Under other circumstances it might have been perfect.... but that's one of the things about a challenge, it has to fit your life the way it is.

Lots of Ideas and Flying Girl Enters the Picture

Williamsburg, Brooklyn: A Journey/Winesburg, Ohio by Sherwood Anderson
An Altered Book, mixed media, 2003

Chapter 7: Ideas
God
Confusion
bounded in a nutshell
love
freedom
fame & success
destruction& rebirth
fear
the notes of a.... song
where I am from where I am going
crazy
believe
the word
Art
joy
strive
spiderweb
dreams
community
work
yes
sleep
possibility


Hey. The ideas spinning through my head 6 years ago are still spinning through my head today.

And right now they are a cloud of ideas, a mish mosh, a cluttered landscape.

Notice, if you please, the tiny Flying Girl on the top right hand of the book. I told you she was not a new idea for me.

So, what to do when your brain is full of ideas, none of which seem to be concrete? None of which seem to be coming to fruition?

You, well, I take baby steps. I plan out the list of things to do. I write out the dreams and the steps I need to take to get there. I remember that the only way to accomplish things is little by little. I remember that all those little steps add up to the journey.

I guess I need to do some planning and listing and organizing and delegating and prioritizing of my lovely ideas/goals.

I know I do. The more I understand all that I have to do, the more I will feel capable of accomplishing the really big things I want.

Step by step. If those ladders didn't have steps in them, they'd just be poles sticking up out of the ground and they would be so much harder to climb.

Oh the terror and the glory of it all

Williamsburg, Brooklyn: A Journey/Winesburg, Ohio by Sherwood Anderson
An Altered Book, mixed media, 2003

Chapter 7
Terror

Sometimes I think my altered book is reaching out of the past and tweak my nose.

It seems rather prophetic.

How did the book know that I would be infused with terror right about now? Lots of uncertainty and transition, opportunity and commitment, risk and struggle.

Sometimes I try to avoid the whole thing and get busy with tv or pointless web browsing or escapist fiction.

But I can see there are things starting to happen now, and perhaps it's time for me to step out of my mental retreat and enter the world again. Start getting things going. Stop feeling sorry for myself.

glory

Here is my book reminding me that out of terror comes glory. Out of darkness come light. Out of confusion comes order.

You just have to keep going.

I believe in messages from the universe. I believe in synchronicity. I believe that sometimes we have to remember to listen.

So maybe if you stumble across this post today, maybe it's a message to you to remember that the fear doesn't have to conquer you. Maybe you just have to go through it, and have faith that there is indeed glory on the other side of the terror.

Surrender: This Is My Life

Williamsburg, Brooklyn: A Journey/Winesburg, Ohio by Sherwood Anderson
An Altered Book, Mixed Media, 2003

writing, left page:
SURRENDER

story/lived/on/story//books/written/lives lived/Born//into the world/wanting love

right page:
some strange impulse of the gods/kissed/laughed//slipped/love/come into/my//self

Let me tell you people. This chapter, 6 years old, sure does come in a proper place in my life, in 2009.

What I struggle with now, lately, is surrender to my own life.

The story that my life is telling in its day to day and its long term living.



The confusion. The hidden, unseen direction that I am flying. The confusion of how to get to the future that I want from where I am now.

writing: This is Life

I think, I think, that by living my life, by accepting it for all its flaws, for all its confusion, for all its sometimes sadness and low points and struggles.

Yes.

Yes.

This is my life.

And you know, sometimes it's okay to be sad. Sometimes it's okay to NOT be productive. Yesterday I was sad, nothing seemed to be working out. It all seemed to be too hard.

So I said to myself, Self, it's okay to be sad. Be sad today. Tomorrow you will get up again and be strong. Tomorrow you will do what you need to do.

And you know what happened?

Instead of being sad the rest of the day, I made my kids dinner and I rearranged their room and I stopped being sad. Well, maybe just a little stuck around, but it didn't take over. And today I got up and did what I have to do and made the phonecalls I needed to make and was much better. All I needed was to accept my state of being for what it was. Isn't that odd? Just let it be, and it let go of its hold on me. I wonder if that would work for other emotions, like fear or anger or frustration or insecurity. I suspect it would.

I'm still a little worried that I won't be able to get my word count up for my nanowrimo book, but you know what, I am definitely living in an imperfect time and space to dedicate all my time and energy to writing a 50k. I just have to accept it for what it is, surrender to my life. Surrender to my desire to write and maybe even surrender to the possible failure in the goal.

But even if I don't make 50k words in November, I will still have written more than I would if I didn't commit to it. I will still have lived my life as it is.

The Godliness of My Tattered Life

Williamsburg, Brooklyn: A Journey/Winesburg, Ohio by Sherwood Anderson
An altered book, mixed media, 2003

This is one of my favorite pages, in its simplicity. I cut out a bunch of pages into a frame and glued them together then gessoed over them. Trying to find some image of Godliness. A leaf was at hand. I liked it. I even like the way the leaf has browned and the page has yellowed and become spotted (I left this page propped open and on view for quite some time). Perhaps godliness, far from perfection, is actually beat up and faded, a part of the transformation of life... which is a part of the transformation of death, in all honesty.

Life and death. Creation and destruction.

In order to make something, you must make a space for it to exist. In order to gain, you must let go. In order to grow you must destroy the old you. I think too often, we equate destruction and loss with evil. But I think that if we don't understand the place of this "negativity" in the "positivity" of life then we don't really understand life.

Maybe that's when we get stuck on this idea of perfection, thinking we must be only light and no shadows. Thinking we should never be sad or silent, tired or unproductive. Thinking that in order to have something we must have EVERYTHING.

I'm going to tell you, in order to be a mom and be a creative person, I have absolutely had to give up things. I've given up money. I've given up freedom. I've given up socializing. I've given up space. A lot of people would not be willing to give these things up. But for me, I needed to have the room and time so that I could go where I wanted to go. I don't regret these losses.

Well, sometimes, but I am willing to wait to get back to these things.

For instance... nanowrimo is coming quick quick quick. I have been working on my outline about an hour a day... but that won't be enough to get my wordcount up. I am going to have to sacrifice somethings. It's going to have to be the internet and the tv. Sigh. I loves me my internet and my tv, but I really really want to have the space to get this novel out of my head and onto a page.

So I will release. I will let go of my comfortable routine and kill my bad website addiction. I will put a hold on fashion and decor browsing. I will stop watching tv shows that I don't really care about and turn the tv off after the ones I do, even if Friends is on or I might be able to find a movie I'd like to see or What Not to Wear is on right this minute.

Let it go. Say goodbye. Let some things lie silent and fallow... and turn that time and energy towards something that I am committed to.

So there's my godliness for the month of November. The creation of a whole new world. The tatters around the edges of what will be the rest of my life. I like tatters. They have charm.

Nobody Knows

Williamsburg, Brooklyn: A Journey/Winesburg, Ohio by Sherwood Anderson
An Altered Book, Mixed Media 2003

Chapter 6: Nobody Knows

I didn't know how much sense yesterday's post made. I rewrote it about three times.

I tell ya, when you're in the middle of things growing and changing, in the middle of creation and sometimes destruction... not much makes sense.

In order to make sense, I think you have to be able to find some perspective.

Now THAT can be so hard.

The thing that I have realized lately is that life is change. We are always changing we are always transforming and shedding skins, facing fears and dealing with disappointment. We are always reaching for the next goal and releasing the things we used to hold so dearly.

Stability is an illusion. We like to think that things will stay the same, that we will be safe and comfortable in our old shoes. We get settled in our routines and when things happen to shake them up, it can really throw us.

But even old shoes are always evolving... mostly devolving, but changing.

This chapter of my altered book, if I remember, was prompted by a challenge in my women's group at the time. My challenge was to do scraffito... although it was not my preference. If I were to do it today, I'd do something different, change it so that it fits my current sensibilities... but this book is 6 years old and it is what it is. It represents who I was in all of my imperfection. It also marks a spot in my life, and how far I've come.

And this page, for all its imperfection, was about me accepting my life, for all its imperfection.

Gosh I still struggle with this.

I think for me right now, in this period of transition, I have to shrink my goals down to right now where I am. Don't start any new projects (although perhaps do some thinking about future projects,) just keep working on the things I can... my novel, my blog, and my life.

Because the truth is, nobody knows what the future will bring, for good or ill. All we have is right now, today. Right here.

This is enough. Release the ambition and just be present. Say yes to the now. Say yes to this life.
..

The Meaning of Life?

Williamsburg, Brooklyn: A Journey/Winesburg, Ohio by Sherwood Anderson
Altered book, 2003

Chapter 5: The Philosopher

To alter this chapter of "The Philosopher" I decided to get real. Here's my interpretation of my life. This was the year I'd quit teaching to focus on my art and writing. I was waiting tables and bartending at a Mexican Restaurant in Williamsburg. I was making my book. I was writing. I was even starting to write art reviews for a neighborhood paper. It was fun.

The picture above is me taking a cigarette break outside of my restaurant. I didn't smoke that much, but it allowed me a break, so I took it. Stood there, got some air, watched the people passing. It says here, "The things we do to keep the flame burning, and write our fire in the sky." Those are the lyrics to a Bonnie Raitt song, Luck of the Draw.


Here's the view of my restaurant from the Polish Diner across the street.

I thought about documenting my life itself, not just getting stuck in my head. I often get stuck in my head. You can still see the same tendencies today. I was trying to find my way out of that place.

Sometimes the wind blows, this says. I remember this windy Autumn day wandering around Brooklyn Heights.

Left Page:

Sometimes I wonder if it means anything at all. Does it mean a thing? Everything we think is so important... is it?

All those things you must have, people, choices, experiences-- we think we can't live unless...

But I always see to go on living. I always move on the next and the next and the next.

Maybe this iwhat the buddhists mean by letting go of passion-- that need, necessity, oh so important listing of what life gives to you.

Even my dreams... must I? So important. What will make me HAPPY. But really, will it?

Right Page:

Life has the MEANING I give to it.

I think back then I was in a great anxiety over doing what I thought I should do with my life. I was 33 and feeling the pressure of hitting 30 without reaching what I thought were my goals.

I was supposed to be a novelist, a published, well recieved novelist at this point. I was supposed to be a writer.

Here I was trying to revise the meaning of my life.

Now, today, I'm doing the same thing. Aren't we always?

Who are we? Are we artists? Parents? Students? Writers? What does it mean to succeed or to fail? Is it really about what we achieve? What we possess?

More and more, I think it is less about what we have, and more about what we do. Less about reaching our goals, and more about reaching FOR our goals. Life is a process, not a product. But there is a product that comes out of our process.

It isn't about having children, it is about living with them, helping them grow, laughing with them, enjoying them, disciplining them, teaching them.

It isn't about being a published author, it is about writing those stories that are within you, and overcoming the fears that keep you silent. It is about commiting to your self and your project. It is about taking steps to share with others.

That's the meaning I give to life now. Life is about living.

What is the living that gives your life meaning now?

Mother: Then and Now

Williamsburg, Brooklyn; A Journey/Winesburg, Ohio by Sherwood Anderson
An Altered Book
Mixed Media, 2003

Chapter 4: Mother (found poetry)

left page: MOTHER

right page:
be
through the streets

the spirit of

life, damn it!

a passion
leading

tide of
the years

and even

Once
arose
faithful
fury

are you ?
here

hunted

and her
unexpressed
dream
presence

about

It's very interesting. I made this altered book long before I was an actual mother. And although I wanted to be a mother, some day, it was an abstract concept. Whenever I thought about mothering or pregnancy or birth, it was always in terms of creation... creating art.

Here the chapter given to me was "Mother" and all I could think about was being an artist. I'm sure he, the original author, Sherwood Anderson made his chapter about being the son of a mother, perhaps looking at his mother in her age, after years of being the mother of a man. Now I look at it an what is trying to be born is The Self, from the depths of The Mother.

How often, in history, in literature, in art, is a mother considered for herself, rather than for who she mothers, how she mothers, her iconic position as Mother?

Oh, maybe it's changing, now that more women have a voice, now that mothers are beginning to speak out about what it means to be a woman, a human being, as a mother.

left page: yes

right page: something/needs/to be/born.

Where I am now, as a stay at home mother whose time is dedicated to caring for her children all day long but who is also trying to carve out a place in all this for her art and writing, is confused.

I think it's a balancing act. A continual balancing act. Weighting my tasks this way or that, looking for a place for myself and giving my children the love and attention that they deserve.

Sometimes I think I have a balance and everything seems to be flowing easily... but that always falls apart as my goals change or external circumstances change, or the children change... as is their job, to change and grow.

This balance is not a static thing. It is fluid and sometimes more like a juggler trying to catch something before it falls, rather than some perfectly balanced thing.

Yesterday I worked on my new novel for one and a half hours. No. TWO hours. I took one hour when the girl went to nap, then a half hour while they were eating. then another half hour when we all went out to the back yard, I sat on the swing seat and they ran around with fudgcicles trying to find various ways of getting dirty. They succeeded better than I did, to be honest, coming in for bed filthy. My brain was clogged and cluttered and having a hard time focusing.

I got quite few ideas for my book yesterday, but had some trouble putting them in order. Balancing them.

Well, today is another day and I will look for my bits of time to work in between naps and meals and I recorded an ocean documentary so the boy will probably be engrossed for an hour while I focus on getting all those new ideas down in some sort of order.

Must remember to keep breathing and remember the long view. Be nice to myself. I think it will help me stop snapping at the kids when they spill their cheerios on the floor, yet again.

Paper Pills

Williamsburg, Brooklyn; A Journey/Winesburg, Ohio by Sherwood Anderson
An Altered Book
Mixed Media, 2003

Chapter 3: Paper Pills
left page: PAPER PILLS
an/with/a/and/and/the/which/will/a/and/a/to/through/or/a/had/a/when/The/was/and/and/
in/the/a/the/The/of/When/like/of/as/as/by/a/after/all/in/by/that/with/never/the/on/in/but/
it/and/it/the/but/there/the/of something

right page:

in

above

ceaselessly

that

truth

again

erect

tall

years

had

the

ino

scraps of paper

of

pockets

upon

another

tree

playful

a

man

you

laughter

sotry

girl

curious

grow

fall

hard.

black page: delicious
white page: I// w//a//n//t// i//w//a//n//t// nothing/all

sideways: the word. the whole universe in the word.

all of the odds and ends of thought scribbled on the bits of paper.

So yesterday I worked for one hour on my new novel outline. It is the 22nd day of my 100 days of writing challenge and I have written a little bit over 7 and a half hours.

D'oh.

But you know what? I changed my focus and it allows nanowrimo, so I am not worried about getting my hours up. I mean, I do have to write 50k words in November. If I write 1ooo words in an hour, that's 50 hours of writing in only one month, less than 1 1/2 hours per day. And I would still have the rest of October and December to get my hours.

Okay, so it might still be a challenge, given my September/October so far, but it is doable.

You realize of course the biggest challenge to writing is never the actual writing. It's showing up to the page. The biggest challenge to being an artist is not the art, it's the living breathing thinking struggling artist herself.

That's why so many artist/writers/actors/musicians etc have been notoriously crazy/drunken/egomaniacal/strung out. I think they self medicate or often get overwhelmed.

The demons are on the inside, and you have to get through them to get to the page, sometimes.

But it's okay. It really is. The demons are only as scary as the power we give them.

Haha. I didn't understand how this post went where it did, and then I looked back at the pages from the altered book.

Paper Pills. Little odds and ends of thoughts. I want. Nothing/All. The whole universe in the word.

It's still a little abstract, this post.

I'm okay with that.