Listening to Yuna’s new album while I write. Cuddling with soft animal bodies. Eating strawberry & rhubarb Noosa with granola, almonds, and raspberries. Cancelling training and skipping yoga when my body needs a rest. Walking and writing with Laurie.
picture by Carolyn Eicher
Staying at 27 Powers Pictures with Andrea. Considering hungers with Sherry. Receiving wisdom from Rachel. Fairyland with Sara and her little family. Giving gratitude and love. Making a mess.
Connecting, long conversations about everything and nothing. Reading. Napping. A warm shower, clean pjs and sheets. Laughing. Listening. Working, from where and how I want to, doing what works for me.
Pretend that a messenger from some great cosmic all-knowing sort of entity — I like to think of it as a giant punk unicorn, myself — has come to you and informed you that you have within you two gifts. The first is the message that you absolutely must get out into the world. The second is the way/talent/means for you to do it. What are those gifts?
I was born to be a serial memoirist: compulsive, self-absorbed, narcissistic, bossy and a know-it-all.
My books so far have been old-fashioned memoirs, the hero’s journey: Falling into disgrace or despair, struggling through the fires of hell to rise, graced with a new life or at least more peace. This classic dramatic arc is not superficially imposed, but the way I think; identifying and tracing the arcs in my own life helps me find meaning and purpose.
I keep trying to improve my identity by evolving into a kinder, more loving, wise, spiritual and compassionate woman, daughter, mother, friend. This is taking a lifetime. Not a bad thing for a serial memoirist.
Meditation begins to open up your life, so that you’re not caught in self-concern, just wanting life to go your way. In that case you no longer realize that you’re standing at the center of the world, that you’re in the middle of a sacred circle, because you’re so concerned with your worries, pains, limitations, desires, and fears that you are blind to the beauty of existence. All you feel by being caught up like this is misery, as well as enormous resentment about life in general. How strange! Life is such a miracle, and a lot of the time we feel only resentment about how it’s all working out for us.
17. Mortified Nation, a “documentary about adults who share their most embarrassing, private childhood writings… in front of total strangers,” which makes me wish I hadn’t destroyed all the awful poetry I wrote in my tween years.
Jamie asks, “what treats do you wish for?”
Connecting, long conversations about everything and nothing.
Open Space Practice, (AKA: A Thousand Shades of Gray) 