Category Archives: Writing

What I Know by Heart

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When I was thinking about what to write about this morning, as usual, I had 47 ideas, all of them equally interesting to me.  There is so much I want to share, to talk with you about.

Horse or Dog?

Horse or Dog?

Like the post on Brave Girls Club, “We Must See Past What it Seems,” and how important it is to give ourselves and each other a break.  All of us are doing the best that we can, and things aren’t always as they seem.  The person at work that seems so irritating and rude to you may have a father who is dying, or have an alcoholic sister-in-law whose suffering is tearing apart the whole family.  Or maybe that person is just lost and confused and afraid, and in their desire to avoid pain they are lashing out at anything that moves.  Maybe that person is you.

Or the article that Anne Lamott wrote for Sunset Magazine, “Finding Time,” and how it made me think about what I might be doing in my life that is wasting time, what there is that I could let go.  Almost seven years ago, I gave up cable tv in the quest for more time.  I live 1200 miles away from most of my family, so those visits and that contact are careful and compressed. I don’t have kids, although I do have two needy dogs and a boy that gets lonely sometimes. I have a core group of friends in my life, but the time I spend with them is focused and far between.  I work, a lot, so on the weekends, I don’t make many plans, and I try to keep my evenings during the week free.  But I’m sure there is more I could do, more moments, more minutes to be discovered. Even though Anne warns “I think this is going to hurt,” it’s worth considering.

VoxOr about the few times this week that I was afraid, but did it anyway.  I climbed up the long ladder (20-25 feet?) into my friend’s tree house.  I’m not so much afraid of heights as afraid of the dizziness it triggers, that the feeling might cause me to fall.  I am nervous around people I don’t know, but I talked to a man in a cape, a stranger to me but a Superhero for the environment.  I shared the link to my blog.  I had dreams and made wishes that, if they come true, will be as amazing as they are terrifying, but I made them anyway.  I told the truth and was vulnerable and opened my heart, even though there were some people I knew would be irritated or think I was weird.

But then I thought, instead of writing about those things, I’d write about some of the things I learned about myself in the last 24 hours:

What I Know by Heart:According to the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, I am a INFJ: Introverted Intuitive Feeling Judging.  Apparently, in the book “What’s Your Type of Career?: Unlock the Secrets of Your Personality to Find Your Perfect Career Path,” author Donna Dunning calls this personality type the “Compassionate Visionary.”  Oh my!  I am so in love with that…When I look up some of the careers I am suited for, I have to smile: therapist or counselor, coach or mentor, social worker, human resource specialist, mediator or conflict resolver, holistic health practitioner, teacher, writer, editor, actor, artist, and minister.  I smiled because just this past week, I had made a visual representation of the direction I felt my work taking, (see the above).

What I Know by Heart: The reason I have been having so much trouble showering first thing in the morning, making myself do a bunch of chores and busywork instead, is because I have too long associated it with leaving the house, specifically to go to work. I was resisting this idea, the work, to the point of not being able to appropriately care for myself. I’m going to try and be better about that.

What I Know by Heart: Part of the trouble I am having keeping up a regular meditation practice is that I have Obi’s ashes and his picture on my shrine. Today, when I sat, I was thinking about Obi, and about the email I just got this morning from the Brave Girl’s Club (“your daily truth from the brave girls club,” you should totally sign up for itBrave Girls Club) that said “it’s okay to feel a bit of a hole in our hearts where loved things used to be,” and I lost it. Sobbing for a dog and a girl, both lost to cancer and both gone for more than a year, a hurt that is still sitting heavy on my chest, one that I am avoiding, that I need to sit with, every day until I am able to let it go.

What I Know by Heart: I have really great friends. The support and love that they give me, the inspiration they provide makes all of this so much easier, and so much more fun. Love you. Love, Me. (You know who you are.)

What I Know by Heart: I require a lot of time alone. It’s not that I don’t like people or being out in public, it’s just that I am so sensitive to all of it that I have to take the time to restore and recharge–by myself. This morning, Eric took the boys running at Lory State Park, and the time alone in the quiet to scribble, putter, read, and think was just the thing.  I need to honor that.

  • What do you know by heart?

Turn the f*ckin faucet on!

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Indeed.  Here’s the secret that Andrea Scher didn’t mention: once you turn it on, you won’t want to turn it off. faucet

The water is so refreshing and crisp and clear and wet, hot if you want it, cold if you want it, add soap and you can clean up, add a tea bag or slice of lemon and take a long drink, fill up a tub or a swimming pool, attach a hose and wash the car or water the plants or add a sprinkler and run through it–I mean it is so much fun, so good, you feel so clean and refreshed and AWAKE: how do you bring yourself to turn the damn thing off?!

Sam, Water Dog

It reminds me of Sam when you put out the sprinkler to water the yard. He’s part Lab (water dog) and part Border Collie (herder), so he will stay in the yard the entire time you run it, herding and chasing and biting and running through the water.  Even after you turn it off and coil up the hose, he’ll lie down and stare at the pile, just waiting for the water to come back, breaking his gaze only to look to you and whine, wanting you to help him get the water back.

Or, like me in the shower this morning.  I was done with all the things I needed to do in there, the task was completed, but the pressure and warmth of the water was so nice, I just didn’t want to get out.

Now that I’ve turned the f*ckin faucet on, I don’t want to turn it off.  I want to take the Myers & Briggs Personality Type test like Jen Gresham suggested, and then sign up for her eight week self-study “No Regrets Career Academy” course and learn how to change my career into “an exciting, successful career that makes a difference, without sacrificing the lifestyle you desire.” I want to fill out the “Ideal Work Day” worksheet that Chris Guillebeau recommends in his book, “The Art of Non-Conformity” and on his blog, and finish reading his book. I want to work on my Mondo Beyondo and Superhero Photo class assignments.

I want to go on treasure hunts and make dream lists and build a shrine to my three big wishes and take a long walk with my dogs and then take a nap with them in the back yard and take a yoga class and meditate and stare at my toes and make blog posts and kiss my husband when he comes home from work and hold his hand and feed him good food that I made while he was away and both of us take another walk with the dogs and talk about all our dreams and plans and work on my book and do research about just about everything that’s so interesting about being alive and human and talk with my friends about all of it over a Red Table or a margarita.

Now that I am giving myself permission to write, to dream big, to make wishes, to be brave, to see where this could all take me, I am extra fed up with my other work, the work that I get paid for, and I am finding it so hard to focus on it when I want to be HERE.  There’s just not room for all of it, at least not in this space and time continuum.  I am greedy, taking on more than I can possibly do, but there is just so much I want.

  • What do you want?