Goodbye

I've moved on from this space and I am officially putting it to rest...thank you so much for reading and commenting. If you'd like to stay connected regarding my new projects, please get in touch through my Facebook account...best wishes.

Welcoming the Storm

Then, it happens again that life turns in and over upon itself...darkest season pushing veins full of ice and silver. Blood thick with it. Last night, I had a dream of spring. Specifically, of digging my hands into the earth and tearing up roots...fingernails black with dirt, breaking on rocks, fingertips sliced with brambles and thorns. I was frantic to clear the soil of its invasive shoots...terrified of what would germinate if I let them grow there. I wanted only the empty spaces and, in the parallel world of dreams, this seemed a perfectly rational thing: to damage myself to get to a plot of ground, stripped bare...to control all of the outcomes. The air hung heavy with green perfume and everything had gone soft with possibility like only April knows...everything soft and pliant, except for me. It was the season I love, and I was missing it with my ruthless stifling of the impending lush and savage blooms.

When I woke, my hands trembled still. The way my dreams take me is ruthless...is saturated with color and light. I want to see things like mundane grocery lists, sunshine and people who speak to each other like they do in life. Instead, words written down slip away--serpentine across the page...alive, embodied, prone to strike. Sunshine arcs into shadow so quickly that what initially seemed like a meadow will soon close in as an overrun forest and, there is no doubt, my hair and clothes and skin will be tangled in vines laced with nettles. People will speak, but when I look at them more closely I see their mouths are stitched closed with tidy red thread. Or they speak and it isn't a language I know...their eyes imploring me to understand, it's important. But, I just shake my head...unable to translate their need.

In life, snow is bearing up the coast from the south and spring is as far away as it will ever be. The ground is buried already beneath the newest year's snowfall and my eyes blur with the bonewhite void...already longing for a flint of color to spark, to catch, to glow. One part of me looks out and fears what will happen with all of the emptiness. What will grow...what will take root...this part is the one I met in my dream, desperate to sever myself from wild uncertainty. The other part of me notices the white nothingness and sees a bare page...a blank canvas...space to fill...infinite possibilities. Yes, I am craving spring already in all of its fierce, verdant blossoming. Hands folded neatly in my lap, I am trying to sit and let whatever seedlings will, take root and grow without my touch or interference. I move into the heart of winter knowing I cannot control what will flower in the spring...knowing that what will come is already underground, under snow, waiting for me.

For once, I welcome the storm.

2011: the year of *yes*

"...and yes I said yes I will Yes."

~James Joyce~

I started 2010 with one word as my intention...freedom. After filling journal pages and making lists and considering and contemplating, it felt perfectly fitting. Freedom...to vacation however I wanted, to waste time, to daydream, to wander and be happy with the expansiveness of my independent life. I imagined a year soft around the edges after a tumultuous 2009 (umm, and 2008 and 2007, for that matter)--it would be gentle and vast and shot through with starlight. Indulgent. Simple.

These moments did find me in 2010, no doubt. All winter, I hibernated through some of the heaviest snowfalls in recent memory--a pot of tea perpetually warming on the stove, stacks and stacks of delicious books read while the world outside the window bleached white. I bought myself a sumptuous bed, spending more money than I could reasonably afford, nesting down in it when the light went stark in the early evenings after work...free to be lazy and write and watch the shadows arc over the plaster walls. Spring came with its narcotic rush and I spent hours sitting in the gathering sunlight, eyes closed...just breathing. I gave myself the luxury of finding a favorite tree and visiting it several times a week--most frequently to sit and read with my back against its grounding presence. One afternoon, I read an entire book of Neruda poetry while cherry blossoms rained down in my hair, on my lap and over the pages...pausing only to whisper, "thank you." Summer was lush and full of watching for constellations and spending time with friends and family...the fall was especially vibrant and saturated with radiance. I spent time by the sea with a group of sincerely amazing women...just soaking in the goodness, the love and the wild creative energy.

But, the word freedom had far more to teach me about ways to face challenges in 2010 than it did about extravagance. 2010 was the year I didn't get the full-time teaching job I was recommended for...at first. It was the year the cute little apartment I was living in became overrun with ants, mice and insanely loud downstairs neighbors...causing constant tension and uncertainty. It was the year my heart was quietly bruised...and after the crushing aches of my past, these muted woundings, at times, felt so severe I could hardly catch my breath. It was the year I faced down loneliness and fear and self-doubt. It was the year I learned how to parent effectively as a single person. It was the year my divorce went through and my name returned to the one I was born with.

Declaring freedom as my word, it turned out, meant that I was going to have situations and issues repeatedly thrown at me until I learned how to get *free* of them. No more avoiding, denying, pretending or wishing away the problems I was presented with. I had to get free of a stagnant job situation I hid in for over a half dozen years...I leapt, faltered for a semester, then ultimately landed in my dream job. I had to get free of my fears of home and security when I decided to move for the second time in under a year. I said no to renewing my lease with no idea of where I would end up until, just weeks before the move out date, I found a perfect house I love dearly now. I had to get free of my worries about what it meant to be single after being part of a "couple" for most of my life. Watching others, all blissed out with their lovers, cut right through me with an ache--jagged and sharp. Until, slowly but surely, it became a more of a dull wistfulness...an awareness that I wished things were different for me but felt genuine happiness for the people around me in love. "Getting free of" was at the center of my 2010 and everything I've learned has made me so much stronger than I was when last year began.

So now, 2011...the year of yes. After the humbling of 2010, I know enough to not make any predictions about what the lessons of *yes* will be. But, I hope it is me filling some of the spaces I have freed up in my life and my heart...I hope it is me giving myself permission to take more chances and invite risk in...to try new things and fail, then say yes again to whatever comes next in spite of this. I hope it is a resounding yes to creativity and completion of my projects...perhaps, maybe even a yes to love. One little word to affirm endless possibilities...or as Joseph Campbell said, "the big question is whether you are going to be able to say a hearty yes to your adventure." It is a question I intend to spend one whole year trying my best to answer...

Telling

"Tell the truth, tell the truth, tell the truth."

~Cheryl Louise Moller~

This past week, my newest publication went live. It is a personal essay titled "Evolution," now appearing in the November-December 2010 issue of All Things Girl Magazine: Issue: Transformation. Whenever my writing is published, it is a thrill. Seeing the byline and getting to share my words with a wider audience than my close colleagues and amazing friends is always a gift. Over my years of publishing, I've had reader letters and emails that have rendered me speechless in their kindness and left me in awe of their appreciation of what I try to do creatively. It never fails to move me. The excitement and the human connection inspire me to keep pursuing this strange public sharing of my private self. "Evolution" was a hard essay to let go of, though. This time, I felt like I'd perhaps pushed my creative boundaries a little too far. I had to address issues of: when does my story become someone else's story? Do I need to protect people in my life, even if they have wounded me? Will there be judgement on my attractiveness, my appeal or my "presentation" if I get vulnerable enough to show how I've been broken, rejected, mended, then broken some more?

With the publishing of this essay, I have never felt more naked. But, a funny thing has happened...since the issue went live, I've had an email inbox overflowing with stories from other women who have experienced similar wounding of their bodies and erosion of their self-esteem. It has started a very real dialogue for me with some virtual strangers about respect and self-love. It has let me talk about the vulnerable and raw parts of myself I typically try to hide with people close to me. I'm not saying one essay or one round of pushing my creative limits will change my entire life--that it will inspire me to always write clear and true, never flinching from the darkest chapters of my personal narrative, but it is changing my day today. For this moment, I am able to look into your eyes, fearlessly, without apologizing for myself. My heart feels out of bounds and quietly brave. Our stories matter...mine...yours...maybe, for just one day, let yourself tell the truth.

You Are Your Own Muse

"I believe a strong woman may be stronger than a man,

particularly if she happens to have love in her heart...

a loving woman is indestructible."

~John Steinbeck~

I took a chance...took a leap...and signed up for this amazing woman's self-portrait photography course, "You Are Your Own Muse." For the next six weeks, I will be exploring my image and self through photos. I am constantly mining my inner-self through writing but am so often uncomfortable with the outer that this challenge will certainly push my limits. The timing felt perfect for someone coming down from a Squam-induced-high where one major theme was "Let Yourself Be Seen." In the online course, we were invited to consider what stories we have to tell through the camera lens...the above shots are two of mine today.

Taking photos of myself requires a certain courage I hope to hang onto. As Vivienne said so eloquently, "Each time we take a self-portrait we are saying, I am here." In these pictures above, I can see my flaws...I look tired...I am not smiling or trying for pretty. I finished writing a challenging section of a project I'm working on, where a character of mine (who only worries about how she appears to others) is confronted by her own darkness. I put the notebook down and saw how the hard edges of everything were blunted by the sunset. The camera came out then and, feeling only half-here, half-in-that-world-I-go-into-when-I'm-writing...I fired off a couple of quick pictures before the battery died. So, although my body positioning, my facial expressions, my photo skills themselves may not add up to technically the best pictures of me ever taken...I like that I know exactly how far into the thickets of my imaginings I still was when I took them. There is some kind of strength that can come from capturing yourself how you look in the midst of doing what you love. Today, this is my visual narrative...a glimpse of me, a moment after writing.

Two Weekend Pages

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The October Project

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