Journey to Authenticity

Hello Friend

Ease and flow.

The space feels new, alive with creative possibilities.

There are walls and boundaries, yes...but also structure and safety.

There is no aimlessness, only purpose.

There is no anxiety, only action.

There is no gremlin telling me I'm not good enough, only me seeing me live up to my own expectations.

Week by week.

And when the fear arises (and it does), the fear that this will stop working and I will be left with nothing again, I pause and take a deep breath. I am learning something. I am learning that I can be trusted. So I soothe myself, reassure myself. "It's okay, honey. Even if it stops working, you'll figure out something else. You're smart. You keep your promises."

There is no chaos here, only harmony.

Hello comfort.

Hello peace.

Hello love.

Quietly Doing the Work

 

It's been a slightly stressful week, but then, it's almost always a slightly (or very) stressful week, isn't it?

I don't know about you, but I'm always looking for the perfect one --the week that doesn't include out-of-town visitors, or a sick child who needs to be taken to the doctor, or a broken laptop, or grocery shopping, or play dates to arrange, or birthday gifts to buy. And in the past, when I haven't come across that perfect week (which was most of the time), the writing suffered. "Alas," I'd say, back of hand to forehead, "there is too much happening. I cannot POSSIBLY work."

However, I've actually internalized something from the writing retreat--I've learned that, yes, I CAN write after all. It's just a matter of adjusting my expectations to fit my reality. I think I was a bit ambitious in believing that I can create my Conditions of Enoughness on a month by month basis--week by week seems more useful. I've already made my list for August, though, so I feel committed to keeping to it--but I've decided to ease the pressure and lower my expectations as far as quality, quantity, and the basic "how it will be done" are concerned.

First off, I let go of the way I wanted to meet my COEs (namely, quietly alone in my room). This week, I had to write when I was home alone with Nathan--there was just no way around it. And even though I waited until he was absorbed in one of his own projects, I was prepared for him to notice my absence, seek me out, and then decide that whatever he was doing wasn't nearly as interesting as what I was doing. And, of course, this is exactly what did happen.

Which led to the next lowering of expectations. There was no way I could sustain forty-five minutes of solid writing. This became especially true when Nathan decided that he was going to write, too. There was a lot of coming and going, bringing paper and a basket of markers, settling himself at my desk right beside me, and asking me every couple of minutes how to spell something.

And so I lowered the expectations even more. I've been averaging about four hand-written pages per forty-five minutes. I decided I'd be happy with two. I also decided that quality didn't really matter right now, either--it's just a first draft. There will be plenty of time to deepen it later.

There is such peace to be found on this path--this path of accepting what you have and making it work as best you can. Situations don't have to be ideal--which is good, because they never are. I kept my promise to myself, and I managed to still have a happy child.

I showed up. I did the work.

It's enough.

Enoughness

A large block of time appears in the schedule. Maybe it's a one-time thing, or maybe this block of time has become yours on a regular basis. Whichever it is, you've got big plans for this time. It will be Productive. There will be Something to Show for it. Huge Chunks of Writing will be the end result.

But then you really start to think about this large block of time, and you remember all the other large blocks of time you've squandered in the past. You think about how you haven't gotten particularly far in your current story. And how you haven't actually finished anything in years. And how you've passed the 40 year mark and you've nothing artistic in your life that you can proudly point to.

Now you start to feel really scared. Scared that maybe you're not supposed to be a writer. You remember that psychic you went to nineteen years ago--the one who was positive that you were meant to be a nurse and seemed completely surprised when you admitted to having creative writing hankerings. Maybe he wasn't a charlatan after all. Maybe you're suffering from delusions. Maybe what you've feared all along, what you've feared others thought of you all along, is true: you are a useless failure.

The clock begins to tick louder--marking the passing of your block of time, marking the passing of your life. You know you want to do something with yourself, make something of yourself. You know you need to start writing. Right Now. Write Right Now.

You sit at the desk, in front of the pen and pads of paper. They seem to whisper at you, accuse you. But you try to block that out, and instead, you think about the story you're working on. You get a glimmering of an idea, something that maybe you can run with. But then it's drowned out by the whispering desk, the whispering pads of blank paper, the whispering of the mean words in your head. You are not a writer. You are not a writer.

It's too painful. You can't take it anymore. You get up from the desk. You leave the room. You find some way to numb yourself, maybe tv, maybe food, maybe somebody else's story.

Or...

Or you can take to heart what you have learned during the writing retreat. You can remember Jennifer Louden's Conditions of Enoughness.  You can choose a time frame (a day, a week, a month) and then decide the minimum that you can accomplish in that time. When you've come up with a list, you can study it and pare it down. Then you can look at the new list, and pare it down even more. Writing three hours a day, six days a week, gets whittled down to forty-five minutes, twice a week. Four blog entries in one week becomes a single entry. You just keep at it, keep lowering the bar until the list becomes truly manageable, until it becomes something that you absolutely easy-peasy know that you can do. Then you do what you promised yourself you would do--no more, no less.

And then?

Then, most important of all, you declare yourself satisfied (even if you don't particularly feel satisfied). And you walk away from the day's work.

I am satisfied.

 

Refreshed, Revitalized, Ready

All the things that I'd hoped would happen during the writing retreat happened, along with a few unexpected (and frankly, unwanted) things. There is so much to ponder, and so much to write about, but I've only been back from New Mexico for a week, and a good chunk of that week included a visit from my parents, so I'm going to keep this first entry simple.

In the weeks before the retreat, I was doing my quarterly "What is the point of my blog and should I even bother" hand-wringing, diva-ish internal rambling. And then I made it external, and had a long discussion with Kara about it during the drive from Placitas to Taos. What's the point? Should it continue? Why can't I commit? Why do I post regularly, then disappear for weeks, and then come back, shame-faced and guilty, apologizing for the gap? Kara, a seasoned blogger, had much wisdom to impart, so I listened and decided to see what came up during the retreat.

Well, something incredible came up during the retreat.

That very first night, during dinner, a repeat offender retreater, a woman who was there in 2007, whom I really liked and admired, came up and told me how much she likes my blog. That she's been reading it since the beginning. That Nathan is blindingly cute. That one of things that she likes most is how I disappear and then come back and write about having disappeared. That she finds this reassuring and even helpful.

Someone I know and admire has been reading my blog for years, and admires the very things about it of which I despair. I was more than stunned. My heart seemed to get bigger in my chest and I could have quite easily burst into tears. 

I read so many diverse blogs, and each one seems a million times better than mine. They live in a hipper area. They have more kids. They have more cats. They have no kids. They home school. They unschool. They send them to private school. They take cool pictures. They are more artistic. They make their own clothes. They knit. They are kinder. They are thinner. They don't yell. They create their own fantastic recipes. They travel. Their family is perfect. They have a garden. They meditate. They post six days a week. They are consistent. They are smarter. They are wittier. They are deeper.

And here I am.

I live in the suburbs. I have one child by choice. I send him to public school. I have one cat. I have a cheap camera and my pictures are average. I am merely a writer. I have a hard time making anything with my hands. I am sometimes unkind. I am a recovering bulimic and may never be thin. I yell. I haven't a clue how to come up with my own recipes. I seldom travel. My family is imperfect. I don't garden. I seldom meditate. I don't post entries in any regular fashion. I am inconsistent. And all I know about my intelligence, wit and depth is that I so often feel stupid, dull and shallow.

Most of the time, I can't imagine why anyone would read this blog. I don't know what the payoff is, or even if it exists. But then this woman came to me and said what she said, and in that moment, I had a glimmering of truth. I don't have to be those other bloggers. I don't have to try to imitate or compare or constantly find myself lacking. I can be who I am, blog who I am, and then let it go. What the blog means to me and what it means to a reader may be two entirely different things--and what's more, the meaning that a reader finds in it may not be my business at all. 

I started this blog as a journey to authenticity, and in the past three years, I have seemed to wandered off my path. Or maybe this is part of the path. I don't know. In any case, I am remembering that I am supposed to be working on being truly me. And in fact, I AM being me--it just that I forget and get lost. But as long as I remember again, and as long as I keep finding my way back to me, it's all okay. 

Actually, this entry isn't particularly simple, but that's okay too. I'm just being me.