peace de la resistance

Here it is - my new spot across the way. I've kept up my intention to get over there every day this week. I've ended up writing my pages there, actually. I know it's not ideal not to be doing them first thing, or come to think of it even in the morning, but the spot does seem to foster mindfulness.

I'll get my butt over there again today, I suppose, though what I really want to do is watch TV and eat candy. It'll be 60-something degress outside today. It's sunny, too. The smell of spring is beginning to kick in in earnest. I'm dyin'.

About here is usually where I fall apart for awhile. I feel so sensitive and sad. When I let myself pay attention, I realize I'm also joyful and hopeful. And really quite cranky. I space out and pull hair or worse to try to keep the level of emotional stimulation manageable. I just want to escape, to go to sleep until about September.

I have commited myself to weathering the spring and summer more bravely this year, for the sake of my future child. I want some solid practice at getting through emotionally stimulating circumstances and remaining grounded and present. Today that means going outside and facing the ferocious beauty of sixty degrees and sunny. It also means doing my pages, my yoga and my ACIM practice.

My other practice, the AW, is ending. My feelings about that are very mixed. I know I've made some progress over the last few months, but it doesn't look or feel like creative progress, and I'm not sure how much of it is attributable to the AW. I have enjoyed blogging and connecting with all of you, and I hope to keep up both of those things. Artist Dates and Morning Pages are also clearly helpful to me, and I am staying with them. But if this program has helped me, why haven't I, for instance, picked up an instrument for over a week? Why do I let weeks go by between times spent working on my new song(s)?

One possible answer is that I have found the Artist's Way to be very ambition-oriented, and this aspect of the program has not worked well for me. In fact, it has caused some inner conflict. I have played along as best I could to get as much out of this as possible, but now that it's ending I need to come clean, with myself most of all: I could give a rat's ass about making records or even playing out right now. I want to do it sometime because I don't want to not have done it at the end of my days, but when I think about pursuing that sort of thing now, even casually, I just feel tired - and phony. I wish the AW had been more about letting myself learn to play without the taint of all those friggin' timelines. My only real ambitions right now are to have a child and improve my spiritual practice. I can't quite wrap my head around directing energy toward my musical "career" while all I really want to be doing is rocking a baby and making pies. Thinking about the recordings I'd like to make someday has made sitting down at the piano a stressful rather than a relaxing experience lately. So I've barely done it. Is this resistance?

Yes. Yes, it is. It's resistance because playing, writing and generally channeling my creative energy more productively - letting it flow instead of keeping it bottled up - could only help me, at this or at any time in my life. I don't want to be justifying not playing for this or any reason. However. If this does happen to be the reason I don't want to play now, then I need to clear it the hell out. I just plain don't want to connect those activities to a career plan or timeline right now. And I'm nearly positive that the reason musical ambition and plans make me queasy at present is NOT because I'm afraid, self-censoring or otherwise blocked, but simply that I have other priorities, one in particular, with which I will let NOTHING interfere.

The way I figure it, if I can cleanse my mind of all that career plan crap, I might just start to play again for the joy of it. Then I'll be more likely to feel up to offering and accepting invitations to play with others, for fun. If there happen to be other perks - as in, I'm singing for fun but it happens to be in a studio or on a stage (and that has actually happened more often than you'd think) - great. That's cool, too. I just won't be as likely to get mentally derailed and reblocked if I don't think about it all in terms of a career path right now. I've got other stuff going on. I have made a different choice.

I need to peruse "Walking In This World" more carefully before I commit to it, to confirm my impression that it is more oriented toward introspective work than career moves. (If anyone has any knowledge about or experience with the book in this regard, I'd appreciate hearing it.) Making a commitment I won't keep will do me no good. For now, I think I may just improvise for a couple of weeks and see what happens.

AAHHHHH.

right there in front of me

My artist date yesterday consisted of exploring a neighborhood across the large and busy street I live on. It's not that the street is even all that hard to cross, but I've had a sort of mental barrier, and I haven't ended up going over there much at all since I've lived here. I did, however, have a memory from a walk last summer of a tiny and pathetic neglected park somewhere around here - not sure where - with a couple of sorry little swings and forlorn basketball hoops. And here's the crazy part: I remembered that the park, such as it was, was next to some woods. And if you only poked your head into the woods, you'd see right away that there was a big lovely brook back there. Not big enough for a beachy bank, but, you know, pretty enough to sit by and even wade or dunk your sweaty self in on a summer day. How could I not go back there all this time?

I've been meaning for what seems like ages to get back to that brook. In fact, as I prepare to welcome a child (whenever it's time), I have lamented the "fact" that there is no little park within easy walking distance from my house. Wouldn't it be sweet, I thought, if I could put the little one in the stroller, pack a blanket and some lunch, and head out for an excursion? In my memory the sad little park near the brook seemed far away and hard to get to. You see, my town is in a very hilly valley. It's quite pretty, but not the best place to, say, take a long bike ride. And for a big Sweaty McGee like me, any walk around here tends to mean having to change clothes upon returning home.

Then there's the architecture. The neighborhood in question, along with other developments near my 1908 farmhouse, was obviously built in the sixties; it's all ranch houses, and gaudy split-level numbers with superfluous pillars ridiculously adorning the front entrances. Depressing.

Or so I remembered.

Yesterday for the second time ever, I walked up the street that practically intersects with my driveway, were it not for the thoroughfare between. Up a short hill, past the thirty foot retaining wall built from old tires (which I find inexplicably charming), around a corner, down a little dip, and - what's this?! The friggin' park is RIGHT THERE. No sweating required. I could practically see my house from where I stood.

I walked across a still-snowy brushy area just before the park, through some trees, and there it was: the prettiest little brook you'd ever hope to see. The sun poured down. The bare trees broke the light like stained glass in a cathedral. The water rushed and murmured happily. It was like the spot knew I was across the street all along, and greeted me then by throwing an arm around my waist and laughing, "What took you so long?"

I walked along next to the brook for awhile, just exploring. So many places to sit with a book or a journal or a guitar. So many holy stands and radiant clearings. I didn't see a single beer can, condom, or slick of shattered glass. It was heavenly.

When I hit private property, I turned back and investigated the little park. The swings are not at all pathetic! They're in good shape, though they're probably too small for me to really get going on (darnit). One is made for a baby. The slide looked good, too - very shiny. The basketball hoops, well... they stood about twenty feet apart and faced the same direction, though the park area was big enough for a small court. But the really perverse bit there was that there was no pavement under them. Who plays basketball on grass? I can see why I was left with a sorry impression of the park from those bizzarre monuments to civic budget cuts. However. Overall, this was clearly a lovely place to bring a baby and some lunch. And while I wait for the baby to show up and make our lunch date, I will be visiting my new friend the brook often. Hopefully daily.

For good measure, I also took a spin around the neighborhood beyond. The street is a big circle, which is awfully appealing for walks. The couple sitting on their porch laughing and talking as I walked by waved back to me warmly. A good sign. And, funny thing - the houses that had looked so crappy and sad to me last summer looked somehow friendly and sweet yesterday afternoon. I loved the garish trim colors. I... okay, the pillars still look dumb to me. But the wind whispered through the tall trees, I greeted my first spring robin (and made a wish - thanks, Kara), and all was right with the world.

It's very funny to me, perfect for the time and not at all surprising, that this happy little haunt has been right under my nose these nearly two years, while I have sat around on the couch, slightly disgruntled about living on a busy street. Behind the house and across a side street is another section of the same brook, but there it's all maddeningly ensconced within private property. Phooey. Meanwhile, all I had to do was cross the street, try a different angle, and New England's stony and tree lined holy ground would spread out before me like an ancient invitation. Somehow, since I had the memory of the park, I must have managed to see this outstretched arm of God once before without seeing it. I guess I wasn't ready to accept the invitation until now.

inspiration

This may be a bit cheap in a way, considering I encountered this woman and her story for the first time last week on PBS program promoting the book Inspiration: Your Ultimate Calling. Maybe I'm just appropriating Dr. Wayne Dyer's inspiration. But I just can't get this lady out of my head.

Here's the thumbnail sketch, lifted from the Amazon page for her book:

Immaculee Ilibagiza grew up in a country she loved, surrounded by a family she cherished. But in 1994 her idyllic world was ripped apart as Rwanda descended into a bloody genocide. Immaculee’s family was brutally murdered during a killing spree that lasted three months and claimed the lives of nearly a million Rwandans.

Incredibly, Immaculee survived the slaughter. For 91 days, she and seven other women huddled silently together in the cramped bathroom of a local pastor while hundreds of machete-wielding killers hunted for them.

It was during those endless hours of unspeakable terror that Immaculee discovered the power of prayer, eventually shedding her fear of death and forging a profound and lasting relationship with God. She emerged from her bathroom hideout having discovered the meaning of truly unconditional love—a love so strong she was able seek out and forgive her family’s killers.

Apparently, the bathroom was three feet by four feet in size. Apparently Imaculee's whereabouts were suspected the whole time she was in hiding. The bathroom was well concealed, but gangs of machete-wielding Hutus would periodically roam the house, calling to her by name, telling her they knew she was there, telling her how they would relish slitting her cockroach throat. She weighed sixty-five pounds when she emerged to safety. She's five nine.

I try pretty hard, but I catch myself slipping quite often and holding on to grievances and judgements about other people. In certain moods, I can get pretty worked up if a grocery clerk looks at me the wrong way. How much happier would I be if I could see past all that pointless crap consistently?

In the AW tasks and excercises, sometimes just for one specific question here or there, I have been asked over the past eleven weeks to imagine a "perfect" childhood. I have been urged to consider the specific what-ifs if I'd had a "perfect" childhood. I have been nonplussed at best and quite irritated at worst with these questions. (When I was asked to finish the sentence, "If I'd had a perfect childhood, I'd have grown up to be..." I wrote, "boring and arrogant.") I am me because, among other things, my past was my past and my parents were my parents. I may be beset by challenges stemming from past abuse, but it is in meeting these challenges that my character develops and my spirituality deepens, and I become more perfectly myself. I don't know how else it could have happened. It happened the way it did. I may have developed differently if I had not experienced abuse, but would I have been better?

I know how to forgive anyone for anything. I know that everyone is doing his or her best with whatever they believe have. I have a keen understanding of the tricky ambiguities of ideas like "good" and "bad."

At least I like to think it's pretty keen. Vanity springs eternal.

Imaculee Ilibagiza made positive use of circumstances horrible beyond measure and beyond expression, seeing and taking an opportunity not only that no one should ever be presented with at all, but that almost no one would even begin to see as an opportunity. She took ideas like "bless your enemies" and applied them far, far beyond what most of us would imagine to be their limits. She hiked directly through hell to personally deliver her humble, infinitely loving offering to God, and she came back alive. She sees the killers as fearful and sad. She wants to help them find the light like she did.

She's married now and has children; she lives in the US. The nightmare is behind her. But even twelve years later, she is so sensitive and present that she tears up when telling an audience that she still believes people are good. And even on TV, even on a book tour, her dignity and grace are palpably evident and absolutely astonishing. In the PBS studio at the pledge break of all things - what is more irritating than a pledge break? - I can hardly look at her or hear her speak without beholding the choirs of angels shining around her shoulders.

Writing this post brings me back full circle to an early post in which I discuss my mother-childhood stuff. Funny, that all came up far less often in the program than I thought it would. Anyway, I suppose the inspiration-share is meant to be more directly creativity-related. But this angel on earth and others like her truly inspire me, more, I believe, than the craft of any artist ever could. In my life and in my creative work, I want to be funny, insightful, smart, sad, dark, bright. I want to be brutally honest. Sometimes I think I'm just honestly brutal. But above all - underneath and around and through it all - may I be loving. Dear God, may I Love.

walking in this world

Just back from my AD. I set out not sure where exactly I would go but knowing I wanted to walk outside a little. I headed in the general direction of a state park I can see as I pass on the highway but which I've never visited. I guess it's not on the road I thought it was, though, as it never materialized in my travels.

As I drove, I listened first to a mix my brother made me this winter which I love, and then to one of R's rock records. I have heard this thing many times. I helped with the ordering of the tracks, come to think of it, and have been listening to it since before it came out nearly five years ago; yet it continues to deepen for me. My friend's songwriting is truly creative. Some of his stuff sounds like nothing else I've ever heard anywhere, but it's unusual without sounding like it's trying to be something. The expression is just clear, natural and unpretentious. And his singing comes straight out of the depths of him. I had forgotten that I'd put this record into my CD changer a month or so ago; it was a real treat to have it with me on my date.

I ended up taking the scenic route to a town I lived in for eight years and remembering some easy walking trails I could make use of. It was chilly outside today, but clear with lots of pale sunshine. I love this time of year. The level of beauty in nature in March is of an intensity I can handle in larger doses. Everything - including the sun - is muted, dun colored, watered down by winter and still slightly frozen. The smell of the dirt waking up under my feet is yet restrained from its future vigor. In April that aroma will vine around my ankles, tripping me up, binding my limbs and winding straight into my poor defenseless heart. In April the buds will burst and I will feel weak with joy and sadness, sensually stimulated to the point of pain. Today there is only a suggestion in the air of the coming ferocity, and I can taunt it with reckless abandon, walking freely in the pastel afternoon.

I walked, I breathed. The last time I was on this trail I had been with a hospice patient, as a first-time volunteer. For about seven months, I showed up for her once a week for two hours and I helped however I could. The first time I visited her, that meant straightening and rearranging her literally overflowing closets to her unreasonably exacting and completely futile specifications as she called out directions from her perch on the edge of the bed. I believe my actual assignment that day had been simply to remain good-natured. I passed. My crazy-making patient adored me from that day till her last. On the occassion of our mountain walk, though she was pale and thin as a reed, her hairless head wrapped in a big purple scarf and her breastless torso looking already like that of a drowned child, I struggled panting and sweating to keep up with her as she strode triumphantly on, defying death on a summer afternoon. I thought of her often today. I thanked her for her lessons in living.

When I returned to my car I wasn't sure what to do next. I needed a bathroom. Should I stop somewhere for tea? My car was headed away from town on a road I couldn't do a U-turn on (huh!), so I drove on a bit. A moment later, I realized I was practically in the neighborhood of a positively magical used book store I'd been meaning to visit. I'd even written about it as a potential artist date early in the program but hadn't made it down there. Welly well.

The drive and the music continued to enchant me on my way. I love love LOVE New England. I stayed off of all the big roads and just drank it in. The drive alone would probably have been a great AD. But then there I was, in the parking lot of Used Book Nirvana (not its real name). I paused to take in the rushing river - glorious - and in I went. It smelled good. Some perfect new-to-me music was playing at the perfect volume on a great-sounding system. The sun poured in through the tall windows. The floorboards creaked under my feet as I browsed. I found a collection of Irish ghost stories, a small sycnronicity since it's St. Patrick's Day and all, and remembered how much I LOVE ghost stories. Resolving to add them to my "touchstones" list (from the tasks this week), I settled into an easy chair in a sunny window overlooking the river, and gobbled one up on the spot. It was only maybe ten pages long, but just packed with intriguing characters, puritan guilt, murder, peat bogs, and the tragic apparition of a dead bastard infant. I loved it.

I also found a copy of Julia Cameron's Walking in This World. I wanted to not care. I wanted to eschew the attraction of further structure. But I picked it up (hmm, perfect condition, probably unread), and I turned it over (hmm... a new photo of the author... I sure did hate the one on the back of The Artist's Way... in this one she looks kind of cool), and I cracked it open. (What's this?! I like her writing in the introduction, and I love what she's saying about walking and talking. Am I misting up?)

Then I flipped back a couple of pages and read the following. It must be by her. (It had better be, since there's no other credit. )

Jerusalem Is Walking In This World

This is a great happiness.
The air is silk.
There is milk in the looks
that come from strangers.
I could not be happier
if I were bread and you could eat me.
Joy is dangerous.
It fills me with secrets.
"Yes" hisses in my veins.
The pains I take to hide myself
Are sheer as glass.
Surely this will pass,
The wind like kisses,
The music in the soup,
The group of trees
Laughing as I say their names.

It is all hosannah.
It is all prayer.
Jerusalem is walking in the world.
Jerusalem is walking in the world.

I love this. This sounds like me. Even the reference to Jerusalem - a gleaming gem of a metaphor that frequently gets lost through literal readings - goes straight to my core. I bought the book. And I gather Ms. Cameron will be comandeering another twelve weeks of my life sometime very soon. This comforts me as we head into week 11 of 12. I guess more structure is just another way to love myself at present. I'll go with it. I'm learning.

week 9 - now, with more singing

I feel tired and emotionally porous, and I think I may have to watch a movie or four on cable until I get my legs back under me today, but I am very happy to report that my weekend of S H singing and socializing was wonderful.

I got off to a slightly rocky start at the workshop my friend taught last Thursday; I felt like the awkward and nervous self that does not resonate as really me no matter how many times it manifests, but which I have nonetheless felt trapped inside way too often for over a decade now. I think I have finally worked out, however, that dwelling on that self, picking apart its feelings and reliving its foibles, has been like handing it the keys all this time. I've been telling myself in effect that that is how I am. On Thursday, I moved on to the next thing, to the next moment, instead. It was good practice - I knew there would be many potential snags to simply move on from over the weekend. Come to think of it, aren't there always?

I am remembering now the Henry Miller quote that inspired me earlier in the AW: Develop interest in life as you see it; in people, things, literature, music--the world is so rich, simply throbbing with rich treasures, beautiful souls and interesting people. Forget yourself. I did not have these words consciously in mind over the weekend, but I think I did live the idea. I was absolutely surrounded, much more densely than usual, with rich treasures, beautiful souls and interesting people. As much as I could, I focused on them. When some little moment did not go as I might have wished, when I felt impatient or judgemental, or unseen, unloved or unperfect, there was always something or someone wonderful to turn my attention to. I found myself simply stepping into the next moment, the next song, the next conversation, the next opportunity to participate. I enjoyed several moments my ego would have found gratifying, but I didn't cling to those, either. Forget yourself. I got to connect, I mean really connect, with so many wonderful people this weekend - old friends, newer friends, people I have wanted to know better. I was PRESENT.

And the singing was fantastic. We were so... together. In an ACIM meditation on Sunday night, I was once again struck by the metaphor of unity that our many voices singing provides. There were as many as three hundred separate bodies sitting in that room, but when we were singing we all sat united in the glorious vibration and harmony of the music. It's like another element, like air or like ether, but more alive. You can practically swim in it. And it penetrates every cell, instantly - of all of us together. The spirit of it is not even aware of our physical limitations; it infuses each of us alike and makes us all the same.

I've hardly written a thing on this compared to my usual volumes, but I am wearing myself out trying to write about it at all, so I'll stop. One final word on my weekend, a synchronicity: The little meditative message on the weekend's mandala to color was "Invisible evolution." I passed the progess test. I've made some.

Here's a quick AW progress report:

I did MPs six out of seven days. The day I missed was during the week and I just forgot - I stayed with it through the busy-ness. I only missed one day of yoga, too. No AD this week, but I am fine with that. I started to read over my morning pages. I found this largely tedious, though I also noticed many areas of progress and actions taken, and a whole lot of movement in the right direction. Which is nice. I'll go back and finish reading them, and continue to make notes on my progress as well as what could still use some focused attention.

I did not do the visualization task as such, although when I read it through it occured to me again that what I want is the life I have, with the addition of more playing, writing, and playing out. I have the advantage of being able to visualize playing with the friends I'd like to collaborate with by actually being with them and making music with them. Better than photos, I should think. My banjo date last Monday was very effective in this regard, and that went so well it seems certain we'll do it again.

Again I say, the themes of compassion and creative U-turns could not have been better timed for me. I got to live not only the visualization but also the U-turn mending task last week. I've been taking steps toward retreiving "the one that just kills [me]" and calling a do-over. The workshop may not have been perfect, but between connecting personally with my dream collaborator and my banjo date with his drummer, things really seemed to be moving forward. This important figure in my life - okay, I'll just call him... R - is already talking about wanting to just move back for good. This area is his real home, and his closest friends and family are all on this coast. So that could happen. I need to do whatever I need to do to get myself writing and playing more as well as playing out, and I'm very much looking forward to the process with G and to whatever other surprises unfold, BUT/AND - if that move were to happen, I could potentially get the do-over of a lifetime. The nice thing is, I know - I'm positive - that I'm already headed into a kind of resolution, no matter how the details work out and no matter how much time elapses in the process of this delightful denouement. It's already happening.

I just took out my totem, which I forgot to do last week: It's a little pewter pendant of Lucy Van Pelt (of Peanuts/Charlie Brown comics fame), looking very pleased with herself. Actually, maybe she just looks pleased! Her closed-eyed smile is positively beatific.

I was painted as a Lucy figure in childhood. I either was or appeared like her in many ways, though I sure don't see myself pulling any footballs away from any Charlie Browns. In any case, when I saw this little necklace in the store perhaps fourteen years ago, I recognized it immediately as my totem and knew that I needed to buy it and keep her near me. At the time, it was primarily her crabbiness that I wanted to embrace. I see now that to love and appreciate Lucy in all her vainglory is to love and accept that aspect of my childhood self, and to bring light to some of my murkiest early pain. Lucy has no reservations about self-expression and no tendencies toward self-doubt or -flaggellation weighing her down on her march through life. She's strong enough to hang out her Psychiatric Help shingle and collect her nickels. She's brave enough to stay open to the bittersweet joys of her unrequited love for Schroeder, and to keep trying. Okay, actually she's so obliviously self-absorbed she probably doesn't notice the unrequited bit, but come on. Isn't there something enviable about that? She may be crabby, but in her way, Lucy walks between the raindrops.

I will definitely go back to list my creative goals, because I find that sort of excercise very productive without being painful.

And now I'd better get cracking on week 10...

big week in eliza-land

This weekend my local S H singing community hosts its annual convention, meaning two or three hundred of my closest friends are coming to town to sing together. Okay, only like thirty of them are actually really close friends, but they feel more like family. In a very real way, the whole unwieldy gang - seriously, the entire community - feels like family. It's intense. So from Friday through Sunday we'll have a houseguest, I'll be getting up at six to cook enormous potluck dishes, I'll be staying out until unreasonable hours singing and socializing well beyond the normal human capacity for either, I'll be hanging out with many of the people I love most in the world but who live far away, AND - the singing that all this centers around, two whole days of it, tends toward a level of musical and spiritual depth and intensity that I can hardly hope to express here. It's big.

As anyone who has read a little of this blog may already suspect, convention weekend has at times been challenging for me. I have had many of my best experiences and many of my very most unbelievably painful ones within this community and around this activity. S H singing with these friends just reaches down into my soul and tears it out into the air, naked and screaming.

For the last couple of years, I have retreated from it all somewhat - sometimes just inwardly, but sometimes by, oh, not showing up for a day. Or avoiding all the peripheral social stuff. Then again, I had been dealing with Grave's disease for the past couple of years, so in addition to my usual sometimes-problematic sensitivity and intensity, I was hyperthyroid. This meant extra anxiety, irritability, and emotional-ness, plus spasitude beyond the pale. (On the plus side, I got to eat like a linebacker.) In this regard at least, I'm all better now.

And I've made so many changes and improvements. All this AW, morning pages, ACIM, yoga, playing and coloring - surely I have turned a corner. Right? Well, ladies and more ladies, this weekend is the test.

This week, more like. A good friend with whom I have had a difficult relationship for some time, a S.H. singer (of course) chose last Sunday to get really , really mad at me just when I thought we were out of the woods and had found a new way to be friends that didn't involve her hating my guts. I have spent the last two days navigating that mine field, trying hard to forget that if things weren't resolved I could be heading into my equivalent of Christmas and the Boston Marathon combined dragging a large sledge loaded with poo. Blessedly, another good friend, another singer, reminded me that I could probably find a way to give more. Even though the friend who was mad at me was being the whack-job, she suggested that I apologize to her. It took me a minute, but I did see that regardless of what "rightness" I wanted to cling to to for the benefit of only my ego, I could give more. I thought she had no grounds to be getting all up in my grill, but I didn't want her to be unhappy. And from her late-night emails, she obviously was. Quite. So I sent her an e-card with a flower on it, and told her I was sorry I upset her. I asked her to please look with me for a new way to be friends. (Nothing says, "It's the thought that counts" like a virtual bouquet e-card.)

I had been planning to blow off the weekly sing tonight because there's just so much enormous stuff going on and I wanted to take it easy. But after I got a little confirmation message that she had retrieved her card, I had the feeling I should just go. And my oh my. Not only was it one of the best singings I've been to in awhile (and we have a lot of good ones), but my friend approached me at the break to give me a little gift. AHHHH.

But wait, there's more! Remember my dream of playing with my musician friend? Well of COURSE he's a singer and will be in town. And let's just say it's a bit of a synchronicity that we are working with creative U-turns this week. When I met him/them and started singing S.H., I pretty much ended up doing a total creative about-face. Back then, before I went completely mental, this friend taught me how to play the banjo and had opportunity to hear some of my non-rock compositions. For many reasons (all fear-based), I was a bit, um, overly engaged with what he thought of me and my creations. He sensed this. He gets that a lot. He was helpful in those early days in the ways he felt comfortable being helpful, and he really was generous with me, but since his style of support did not include falling down rapt and gushing over my staggering talent and/or begging me to be in his band, I took him to be unsupportive or even critical. By the time I figured out that he was actually very interested in what I was up to, I was so twisted up about everything that I had squashed my dream of collaboration down deep into my murky depths. U-turn. Yuh.

Of course, the Artist's Way work dredged it back up for me. Well. Remember how one of the tangible steps I decided I could take toward dipping my toe into the water of this wild dream again was to play banjo with my other friend, the one who plays with the one I want to play with? I did that last night. It was gooood. And, miracle of miracles, I felt comfortable. I had fun with it. So here we go.

And I will leave you with the synchronicity grande of the week. My dream bandmate is not only moving back to this area for a year starting this summer, but he also sent out email on Monday saying, among other things, that he wanted to start an "American Music" (old-time music and ballad-type and S H singing) ensemble. Okay, he's going to be here to teach at the university, and this may be just for his students, but he actually wrote in his mass email update that he wanted the group to be open to anyone, of any ability. No matter how you slice it, that's some juicy synchronicity burger right there. He's also teaching a workshop this Thursday that I can attend. And best of all, I get to hang out and sing with him this weekend. (He even sent me some sweet personal email yesterday to reconnect.) More steps, more openings, more possibility. A chance to one way or another reverse one of the most significant and regret-laden creative U-turns of my life. What a gift. So lets hope I can keep my wits more or less about me this weekend. There's no crying in baseball.

week 8

Well. The progress report felt awfully good to do. I think it helped me move toward the goal of recovering a sense of strength in a rather difficult week.

My potential pregnancy party has officially been pooped. Yet somehow, the net result of the experience of becoming convinced I was pregnant, even though I wasn't (or didn't stay that way), is that I feel more fertile. I know more deeply that I am ready and that I really want this. After an initial high in week 7, I watched myself let some of my helpful new habits and practices slip into the back seat as I retreated into nervous disassociation and some self-destructiveness. It wasn't even fear of pregnancy or motherhood that did it - it was just the discomfort of not knowing, of being out of control. Doubt set in. The less I trusted that all would be well no matter what, and the more I manically checked my symptoms and looked for signs, the worse I felt. Less grounded. Less strong. More out of it. I even developed cold symptoms and ended up missing some things I had wanted to do.

By the end of this week, even as my period was late, I settled down. I got real. I let go of outcomes and I got back to work on myself, my creativity, my life. I cooked, I played, I did my practice, I started another new song. I felt better. When it became clear I was not pregnant, I was completely okay. And now I know that in my future opportunities, which have already begun to unfold, I won't do that again--I'm tired of the cliche, but this is definitely a been there, done that kind of moment.

I think this pattern may play out with other creations as well. I don't like the earliest phase of gestation. I want my songs and such to come to me whole and perfect in the manner I choose, at the time I appoint. I start imagining the positive responses I will get from the people I'll share them with before I've gotten any further than a couple of interesting chord changes. Huh. Come to think of it, there is something to explore here about wanting to validate myself to others through my creations, and I think it started to rear it's nasty little head around having a baby. Eek. Well, that's something else I learned, something else to keep an eye on starting now.

I did my pages every day, as usual. My cold kept me in for my artist date, but I did watch a fantastic movie called "What the Bleep Do We Know," which definitely filled my well. I plan to rewatch it later today. It's right up my alley - metaphysics - though via the scientific perspective. Same diff! Among other fascinating assertions helpfully illustrated in this wonderful piece is the idea that our words and emotions actually change our physical bodies on a molecular and cellular level. More reason to choose forgiveness, love, and joy, all spelled out and articulated in a cogent and scholarly manner. Both sides of my brain were thrilled. And I just LOVE how many of the conclusions of quantum theory say many of the same things about reality, virtually verbatim, as spiritual texts like A Course In Miracles and Conversations With God. Everything's coming together. The parallel lines of science and spirit are heading into infinity, straight toward intersection. They are revealing themselves to never have been opposed at all. Ahhh.

Ooh, goody! Just peeked: Compassion is the theme of week 9. I expect I will experience sychronicities among my practices. And what was I just saying about reasons to choose forgiveness, love and joy? Ahhh.

progress report

I need to count my blessings out loud today. It occurs to me that in the last two months, I have begun changes, made changes, made progess, taken steps. I feel as though I may have lost my footing, but I'm brushing myself off today and things don't look bad at all. Here's an inventory, in no particular order:

- A new practice: Morning pages
- A new form of self-expression: Blog writing
- A commitment honored: Staying with the AW, doing tasks and excercises
- Progress: More frequent piano playing
- Progress: More frequent, deeper banjo playing
- Progress: More comfort with electric guitar; playing plugged in
- Progress: Playing music with G
- Progress: Two songs in process
- Step taken: Banjo date with P (finally coming up this Monday)
- New pleasure: Joined community chorus (We're doing Haydn's "Creation" this spring. Heh.)
- Progress: Going out for Artist Dates, walks, sitting on the porch
- Progress: Better SH sing attendance
- Progress: Seeing friends more
- Progress: Reviving friendships I'd let slip
- A commitment honored: Two months of yoga very nearly daily
- A commitment honored: Two months of regular ACIM practice
- Progress: Reading more
- Progress: Feeling much happier overall
- Progress: Much less self-harm
- Progress: Feeling more socially comfortable overall despite some wrinkles
- A new practice: Weekly mandala coloring
- A new work of art: My week 7 collage
- Progress: Learned how to use the camera with the computer and post photos
- A new creative outlet: Photography
- A new blessing: Blogging friends
- Progress: Spring is coming



I remain in the land of in-between, of not knowing. I continue; I am in process. Moving onward, not sure of my precise location on the continuum of my life's timeline, taking my steps: one at a time.

This brings to mind one of my all-time favorite songs. It's called, "Put One Foot In Front of the Other," and it's from the Rankin Bass stop-action animation Christmas special, "Santa Claus Is Coming to Town." I guess I'll save my gushing about what Christmas means to me for next December. But this song really gets me, and it's perfect for how I feel now. I don't know if I've ever heard it as an adult without crying. I'm pretty smooshy that way.

I identify with the bad guy who is good deep down, since I was cast as a bad guy in childhood and the resulting anger and frustration made me seem like one sometimes. I still watch myself very carefully for meanness, and I still notice plenty there. I have often punished myself for what I believe to be bad thoughts or behavior, only to punish myself for punishing myself - for the damage I have done, for the time I have wasted in this cycle of pain. I have gotten that God loves me completely exactly how I am, with my entire inventory of "bad." The secret is that God doesn't see the bad - to God, that stuff is so illusory and ephemeral as to not be there at all. Only Love abides. Yet I still struggle, as we all do.

Anyway, the scene with this song opens with Kris Kringle asking the Winter Warlock to have the magic evil trees that are restraining him let him loose for a minute, because he'd like to give him a present. The Warlock is taken off guard by this since no one else has ever made him such an offering. He suspects a trick. But K.K. says he wants to start a new custom, the bad guy is swayed, the trees are commanded to liberate the prisoner, and soon the mean old warlock is happily smooching his new choo-choo. Then we hear a melting sound and his face goes watery, coming back into focus soft and pink where once he was icy and white. "My whole outlook has changed from bad to good!" he exclaims. "Ah. but will it last. I really am a mean and despicable creature at heart, you know. It's so difficult to really change." Kris Kringle laughs and tells him that going from bad to good is as easy as taking your first step.

Put One Foot In Front of the Other

Chorus:
Put one foot in front of the other,
And soon you'll be walkin' 'cross the floor.
Put one foot in front of the other,
And soon you'll be walkin' out the door.

You never will get where you're going
If you never get up on your feet.
Come on! There's a good tailwind blowin'.
A fast walkin' man is hard to beat.

(Chorus)

If you want to change your direction,
If your time of life is at hand,
Well don't be the rule, be the exception.
A good way to start is to stand.

(Chorus)

[Warlock:]
If I want to change the reflection
I see in the mirror each morn,
You mean that it's just my election
To vote for a chance to be REBORN?

Put one foot in front of the other
And soon you are walkin' 'cross the floor
You put one foot in front of the other,
And soon you are walkin' out the door!


The Warlock's faltering but slowly steadying steps are cheered by woodland creatures, including a fawn standing for the first time. I love this juxtaposition. The idea of that option of rebirth at any time we choose means a great deal to me. I used to want it in a lightning bolt, with a fiery angel and suspension of time. These days I notice that rebirth happens over and over, every time I feel my hard heart melting. No matter to what nether regions I take the wings of the morning (most recently to pointless doubt and ungrounded mental restlessness), the sun keeps dawning and I keep standing back up. This program and community are providing "a good tail wind." And my time of life is at hand (whether I happen to be pregnant today or not).

spiritually evolved or VERY BORING

Remember that Sinead O'Connor album title, "I Do Not Want What I Haven't Got"? Well that's me, apparently. I just did this week's tasks, and my wildest dreams are ostensibly quite attainable. I don't want to be famous. I only want to do what I enjoy, to respect myself, to create for the sake of creating, to work with others I respect and who challenge me to keep growing creatively, mentally, and spiritually. I want to make recordings, not to sell them so much as for the sake of, well, making a record of my work and having a tangible representation of it that I can keep and share with others. (The nice thing about recordings as opposed to, say, sculpture, is that I can make as many copies as I want and share what I have done virtually infinitely.)

I want to perform to share what I do with people I love and with others who might discover and enjoy or be touched or helped by my work. I've been around and involved in the music/recording business enough to know that anything beyond the musical equivalent of independent press just ain't my bag. Touring and high-pressure performance dates hold little or no appeal. I'd rather play smaller, more intimate stages. I know I could get gigs around here, and that would be enough. Digital technology has made it possible for anyone to make and reproduce decent recordings, but I used to be a recording engineer. And I even prefer lo-fi to slick. Doable, doable, doable.

Of course, I also want to play and perform and record with the musician friend/s I wrote about a couple of weeks ago. That's a bit specific, but I'm asking the universe for it anyway, especially since it's so, well, possible.

I am sure, and I mean I'm completely positive, that the attainability of my goals is not just me preemptively undercutting my own options to avoid having to take risks. My heart knows that when it comes to creative goals, these are the things I truly want.

Does this make me boring? It feels pretty good from in here, but I wonder on some level if it makes me a less interesting person to others. When I did the list of twenty things, I noticed that I tend to like to do things that are cheap or free and have little or no associated physical risk and a nice slow or moderate pace, although I listed nothing that I didn't find spiritually stimulating. The thing is, I listed the things I do or could do every day. Baths. Walks. Movies. Singing. When I moved on to the "Ideal Day" excercise, I realized that by the yardstick of this list, I could have an "Ideal Day" every day. And for the "Ideal Ideal Day"? Well, I could use a nicer yard with trees for snoozing and hanging out in in the summer, but even there, something else in this town or this area would suit me fine. I don't want to live in Bali or even in Big Sur. And I don't want to be on any magazine covers, sell a million records, or have my ride pimped. I just want to have a good meal and a good laugh with friends. I want to have a child, happy kitties, some cds of my songs.

This is quite a thing to notice about myself and my life: I can have what I want. I don't want a different life. I want the one I have; I just want to live it more fully. I could take way more of the nature walks I love so, or even make a regular thing of it - a weekly walk, not to be blown off. And horseback riding - easily incorporated. The steps I laid out toward meeting my musical goals were the ones I've already been beginning to take - just play. Just write. Play with others. Begin to share the work again. Doable, doable, doable.

Wow. What was I afraid of? The AW must be like the ruby slippers and yellow brick road - you may have had the power all along, but you have to walk the whole way before you'll believe it. And you have to believe you have it to use it.



PS - I'm still in limbo about the status of my ultimate creative project. Many thanks to those of you who left supportive words. I need them, and they're helping.