Fast or Slow…Just Go

07 Mar 2024 9 Comments

by writingforselfdiscovery in The Farm, wisdom, Writing Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , ,

I woke up out of sync. It was five o’clock, my normal wake-up time. But from the moment I opened my eyes, no, even before I opened my eyes, the day felt empty.

When that happens, it has nothing at all to do with the day. It’s something I’ve encountered at various times throughout my life. A feeling of immense futility, worthlessness, and hopelessness, casts a dark shadow over my normally upbeat nature. I would guess it’s depression, and my empathy goes out to those who struggle daily with that affliction.

Usually, though, after I drink several cups of coffee, journal, go through my yoga routine, and meditate, the blues have faded and I’m fired up for the day. Not this day, though. It wasn’t happening.

So I did five Spanish lessons on Duolingo, something certain to banish the doldrums.

That didn’t work either, and to make it worse, the house was full of golden light. It’s been overcast and dreary for weeks, but today, the brilliance hurt my eyes. Had it been cloudy, I could have given myself permission to curl up with a book, reading and napping my way through the hours. But, no. The sun demanded action. I could not be found wasting a rare sunny day.

I thought of all the things I could do. All the things that needed doing. I had zero motivation for any of them. Itchy pressure kept building inside until I exploded. “Okay! I’ve got to get out of this house!”

I knew how deceptive early March sunshine can be in Minnesota. The trees outside my windows weren’t doing the salsa, more like a slow waltz, but they were moving so I dressed accordingly: jeans over leggings, layers under a down jacket, lined boots, a hat that covers the ears, and warm gloves.

I’d barely closed the door behind me when Freya, my sister’s German Shepherd, came bounding to greet me.

After sufficient petting, scratching of ears, and a game of tag, I set a course, and she took the lead.

The wind blew crisp in my face as we headed south through the field along the border of the marsh. I strode at a brisk clip while Freya pounced on imaginary critters and slurped water through holes in the patchy ice. At the corner, we veered west following the tree line. Ah. No wind here. Squirrels and birds tempted my canine companion as she zig-zagged in and out of the woods chasing them.

We crossed my sister’s forty acres, then our friend’s twenty. I stumbled upon a boneyard for dead equipment, a rotting wagon, and a few other long-abandoned odds and ends.

At one time, this was all Dad’s land. Had these once been his? My mind raced backward. This is where we lived when I was born seventy-four years ago. Even after we bought the house on the Mississippi River in Grand Rapids, we kept the farm. Summers were spent here making hay until I graduated from high school and left home.

Goosebumps prickled my arms. No wonder I sometimes woke up disoriented. I’ve come full circle. After living on the other side of the world, I’m back where I began. I’m probably as old as that wagon. I shook off the déjà vu and continued my journey.

Beyond a ditch, lay my cousin’s cornfield. He’d harvested last fall, cutting and removing the stalks leaving ridges of bare dirt now softening into mud. The water in the ditch was frozen, so I slid down the bank, skidded to the other side, and turned south.

By the time I’d circumnavigated the fields of several farms and found the road again, I arrived back at my own front door. Suddenly, it seemed like the perfect moment to wash windows. I abhor washing windows! I can tolerate streaks and dirt for months without feeling a single pang of guilt. I grabbed cleaning solution, old newspapers saved for just this purpose, a six-foot ladder, and got to work.

By the time I finished, it was noon. I’d spent all morning outside in the fresh air and sunshine. Far from feeling tired, happy endorphins pinged through me. I heated a bowl of chicken chili and decided it wouldn’t hurt to sit still for a while and write.

The moral of this story is pretty obvious: When those itchy, pointless, hopeless times come, don’t be confined by four walls. As hard as it is, get dressed and get out. Walk. Breathe. Explore. You may not have acres of field, swamp, and forest, but you have something. Maybe it’s sidewalks and skyscrapers, a community rec center, a mall, or a park. Whatever it is, just go. Move your energy. Fast or slow it doesn’t matter.

Just go.

The Strong Survive!

24 Feb 2023 18 Comments

by writingforselfdiscovery in Bali, grannys landing, love, The Farm, wisdom, Writing Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Winter.

Wind hurls shards of ice over undulant waves of snow.

Brooding skies usher in gray days without sun.

Monochrome world rests, void of life save for the tracks of wild turkeys, foxes, and a lone wolf.

Deep, profound, stillness.

Deep

Profound

Stillness

My love for this place is an ache.

At five, maybe six, I helped Dad plant a windbreak, the seedling pines that now soar thirty to forty feet. Their tips touch the clouds.

Back then, it was called Willow Island Farm, and I climbed the graceful trees that gave it that name. Hopefully, I aged better than they did…decayed stumps…a few sprawling branches.

I’ve moved more than 45 times in my life. Vagabond. Gypsy. Restless maybe. But also curious. What’s it like over there? Are the people kind? Happy? What stories do they tell? What gods do they worship? I was told that people are people – basically the same no matter where you go. That isn’t true. Brilliantly unique and endlessly fascinating, humans reflect their culture, their climate, their geography, and their belief systems.

Balinese are nothing like Australians. Aussies are vastly different from Italians. Italians are as unlike Norwegians as Chianti is to Aquavit. But how magnificent. I love them all.

So where am I going with this? Good question. Sometimes I write because my head cannot contain the abundance of my heart. For instance, right now it’s 6:46 a.m. Look at that sky! I’ve been gifted another glorious morning. A splendid new dawn. My throat constricts and tears burn behind my eyelids. It’s -18° F out there with a high of 7° expected today. This is winter in northern Minnesota and I came back.

It’s about choices and consequences. Connections to people and places. Belonging.

The long-time residents of this area are tough and willing to help one another. Community sustains itself through connection…shared abundance…shared work…shared life experience…winter!

People have welcomed me because of their memories of my parents, because of their love for my sister, and because of the helping hand my brother-in-law has extended time and time again to so many over the years. And, I suppose, because they’re curious. Who is this woman who left so long ago and now returns late in life? Why here? Why now?

For eleven years, I was defined by where I was. It was an exciting, exotic persona. Shedding that skin leaves me naked, a blank canvas. I no longer have the urge or feel the need, to be unique. No, that’s not quite right…I am, by nature, unique. But I’m ready to be a part of this culture that is in ways so familiar and yet so foreign. I want to approach the people here with as much curiosity as I carried with me to other lands. I want to know them, not only for the ways we’re different but also for our similarities. I want to engage and blend and discover my place and purpose. But most of all, I want to spend the time I have left near family.

——-

During the past six months, my energy has been consumed by house construction. There was little time for reflection and less time for writing. Exhaustion was a permanent state of being.

On Valentine’s Day, I moved into a not-quite-finished home. There’s still work to be done. My shower tower (raised because all the plumbing is housed beneath it) needs steps. The kitchen begs for a countertop, a sink, and shelves in the corner for dishes. Oh…and dishes…I’ll need those, too!

It never ends. But now, there’s a little more time to think, to feel, and to remember how delightful it is just to be.

Soon I’ll share the after pictures of the magical home that has emerged from the love and sweat that Gwen, W, and I have poured into it. Just another week or two and the finishing touches will be photo-worthy. And so will I, stronger and more resilient, with a host of new skills I didn’t know I needed.

Don’t mess with this Granny!

But I will never, NOT EVER, tape and mud sheetrock again!

Good Things Come to Those Who Wait (and Wait, and…)

09 May 2022 3 Comments

by writingforselfdiscovery in Writing Tags: , , , , ,

Lady Mary Montgomerie Currie (1843 – 1905) is credited with coining that phrase. For someone as impatient as I am, waiting is an excruciating concept. Maybe in her era, it was easier. But in the past two years of waiting to get vaccinated, waiting to see loved ones, waiting to get boosted, waiting to unmask, waiting, waiting, waiting, the idea has lost its charm.

Many times while I was growing up, Dad cautioned me saying, “Don’t push the river, Sherry.” In other words, slow down and wait. My issue with patience has a long history.

I’m telling you this because, for the past few weeks I’ve been scanning sites like Upwork and Indeed, looking for an opportunity to put my love of writing to work for pay. I knew exactly what I didn’t want and it seemed all of the jobs posted fell into that category. Time passed and I started to think maybe I should forget my preferences and apply for something less than perfect.

But Dad’s words came back to taunt me. Don’t push the river.

And it was a river, a veritable flood of opportunities to ghostwrite blogs, research and write articles for insurance companies, prepare SEO content for websites, and perform other feats that required a technical aptitude I didn’t have and didn’t want to learn. Every day I scrolled through columns of new postings looking for something less soul-crushing than Search Engine Optimization.

So I waited. I did. Impatiently tapping my fingers and twiddling my thumbs, hoping my good thing would come to me.

About two weeks ago, there it was. Featuring Fabulous, a new online magazine for women ages thirty to sixty was looking for writers. I read their mission statement and drooled. The categories for articles they wanted (except perhaps the one labeled Sex and Relationships) were topics I could write about with ease and confidence.

Featuring Fabulous Logo

My heart hammered with that mixture of oh-my-god-this-is-it-don’t-get-your-hopes-up as I filled out the application and hit SEND.

Several days later, an email appeared from the magazine inviting me to pitch an idea for an article. I was elated for about a nanosecond. Then the self-talk kicked in. They probably send this to everybody who applies. It’s a great way to narrow the playing field. I have to be unique, present something out-of-the-box, get their attention.

I wrote the piece first, just to be certain I could put flesh on my thoughts, then pitched it sending a sample paragraph and three potential titles. The response came quickly: Sounds good, please submit. That was followed by a request to fill out their payment info form.

I immediately pitched another story. Again I was invited to submit and encouraged to keep sending my ideas. So I made my third query. Within five minutes I was asked to send that one as well. That’s three out of three in less than a week.

My first story has been published. You can find it here. And if you’re a woman between thirty and sixty, or a man who likes articles written for women, or you’re interested in supporting a new magazine, go ahead and sign up for it. It’s free.

I’m thrilled to have this opportunity and I’m in love with words again. It’s been a long, dry, covid-induced writing coma, but I’m waking up and the future holds a shiny promise of more good things to come.

Revising My Blob-ish Lifestyle

02 Jul 2021 10 Comments

by writingforselfdiscovery in Bali, Covid, virus, lockdown, wisdom, Writing Tags: , , , , ,

Before Covid, I had destinations. I walked.

In early Covid days, with Bali completely locked down, I did qigong, yoga, and surfed the net for workouts. I had to keep my body moving to manage the trauma. I couldn’t concentrate. The only thing I could focus on was movement.

That lasted about two months. Then I started writing again – and sat.

I sat through the last six months of 2020 and the first six months of 2021. Here we are in July and I’m a blob. Granted I’m a flexible, strong blob thanks to my continued dedication to yoga, But even though I haven’t gained weight, my flesh has settled into a new arrangement. I’m totally shapeless from my sagging seventy-one-year-old boobs to my flat buttocks.

It’s not that I can’t hit the pavement and hike around Ubud. I don’t have to battle tourists. There’s no traffic. The air is unpolluted. But I’m not one of those who can walk aimlessly just for the sake of walking. I need a purpose – a goal.

Without somewhere to walk to, I can’t make myself do it.

A week ago, as I was staring off into a sky puffed with cottonball clouds, I heard a sound that has become so familiar over the years it’s part of the morning music. My neighbor was jumping rope. He’s as faithful to his routine as I am to yoga, but that’s where all similarity ends. He’s ripped. His calves are knotted with muscle and there’s not an ounce of unnecessary flesh anywhere. Okay, he’s fifty, and he’s been doing this forever. But the light went on for me as his rope slapped the floor.

Faster than you can say Amazon, I was online with the Indonesian counterpart to that mega-store searching for jump ropes. There were choices. Some were plastic tubes with flashing lights. Others came in glow-in-the-dark colors. I settled on utilitarian black with ball-bearings in the handles, guaranteed to make the rope turn with a mere flick of the wrists. I put it in my cart and clicked the buy button. A message flashed on the screen. You need two more items. I puzzled over that for half a second. The rope probably didn’t cost enough to warrant shipping. It was about $5.

There isn’t an English language option on this site so rather than confuse myself, I added two more jump ropes to my basket. This time the order went through. Delivery July 6th.

They arrived yesterday, July 1st. I love that about Lazada – they under-represent and over-perform.

The ropes were long enough to accommodate an eight-foot supermodel, but they were adjustable. I spent the afternoon customizing one of them to my 5′ 2″ height, then tucked it beside my workout clothes and promised myself I’d start tomorrow.

Tomorrow arrived this morning.

My neighbor jumps non-stop for an hour. I decided I would set the timer for two minutes jumping, one minute resting, two minutes jumping etc. A nice, easy start. I spread my mat on the terrace, set the timer, and assumed position. Jumpjumpjumpjump – too fast.

I stopped, reset the timer, and started again. Jump…jump…jump…jump… Still too fast. One more reset. Jump………..jump……….jump……….

Heart pounding, I sat down to rest and revise my expectations.

After numerous stumbles and fumbled starts, I found a combination that worked – jump for thirty seconds and rest for 60. I kept that up as long as I could which today was about 15 minutes.

What a workout. I had no idea. And I also had no idea how little stamina I have. This rope has arrived just in time.

I’m not discouraged. It’s the kind of challenge that excites me. I don’t have to meet my neighbor’s level of endurance. OMG. Never in a million years! But I can and will keep at it until I can do two minutes non-stop without going into cardiac arrest.

There seems to be an added benefit. After that brief but intense exercise, the rest of the day I’ve been supercharged with energy and my mood is elevated in spite of the news that Bali is going into another lockdown July 3rd. The Delta variant has reached us and numbers of new cases have spiked from weeks of double digits to 311 today. That’s heartbreaking for the struggling economy and the millions out of work.

But the sad reality is, lockdown doesn’t actually change much of anything for me except physically meeting up with a friend in an outdoor restaurant. As of tomorrow, restaurants close to all but pick-up and delivery orders. Seventeen months later we’re back to square one. But I’ll tell you what… When this is over I’ll have the endurance of an ostrich.

**The ostrich runs at 30 miles per hour and has the endurance to keep it up for hours on end, thanks to their remarkable anatomy that minimizes effort while running. Having evolved on the plains of Africa, they are well-accustomed to the heat as well.

The Formidable Power of Intention

28 Jan 2020 8 Comments

by writingforselfdiscovery in Uncategorized, wisdom, Writing Tags: , , , ,

I careened into 2020 out of control. That’s how the energy of the new decade felt. I couldn’t focus, didn’t want to write, looked for distractions to keep me too busy to think. There’s a word used by my British friends that seems to fit. Scatty.

I was scatty.

Normally, my actions are intentional. I’m calm, well organized, emotionally stable, disciplined, and self-motivated. I set achievable goals and bask in an overall sense of well-being. In the months leading up to 2020 the person that used to embody those attributes went missing.

I felt like a stranger in my own skin.

I couldn’t put a sentence on paper to save my soul, nor did I want to. All that interested me was getting together with friends. Hikes, lunch dates, meetups for coffee, any excuse to be with people would do. I no longer needed long hours alone to recharge. For the first time in my life, people energized me.

I kept waiting for the phase to pass. I made excuses for myself: I was overstimulated from my trip to the States, out-of-town visitors needed my attention, it was just a bad case of writer’s block. Soon, I thought, the old me would be back and life as I’d known it would resume.

But it didn’t.

One morning, a personality test popped up on my phone. Before I was fully awake I’d engaged. Instead of multiple choice, I was told to identify the pictures that most closely answered each of the questions. I found myself sinking into the situation each image represented, feeling the truth in my body.

When my answers were tallied I viewed the graph in amazement. I’d scored a whopping 92% in extraversion which, the results explained, reflected how energetically I engaged with the outside world.

On the one hand, I felt seen. My unusual behavior was validated. By some twist of nature I’d become an extrovert.

On the other hand, it freaked me out.

Grasping for clues, I searched my journal entries and a pattern emerged. My desire going into 2020 was for honest communication, greater authenticity, and to be fully and unapologetically who I am. I’d been thinking about it, journaling about it, talking about it, and meditating on it. My intentions had been broadcast to the Universe in multiple ways, many times a day.

What I hadn’t done was imagine what that would look like in real life. I hadn’t expected a rewiring of my nervous system, or that I would become a social animal enjoying the company of the pack at least as much if not more than my solitary cave. I’d made assumptions based on old programming not realizing that the authentic me was a different creature entirely.

As I come to terms with my updated self and accept the mildly schizophrenic sensations that have accompanied this transformation, I’m in awe of the formidable power of intention. I’m also aware of how unskillfully I used that power. I imagined a slight tweak to my personality. But the words, to be fully and unapologetically who I am, that I unleashed to the cosmos, were not about tweaking. In essence I used a jackhammer to pound a nail.

I wish I could describe how it feels to be so abruptly and thoroughly changed. Everything I do is a new experience even though I know I’ve done it hundreds of times before. Sometimes I’m surprised by what I say though as soon as I’ve spoken I know it’s my truth. It’s like someone else has incarnated in my body and claimed it for their own yet this alien other is more authentically who I’ve always been.

It’s spooky, thrilling and disturbingly new, and slowly, very slowly, I’m starting to write again.

MUDDLED MIND

09 Dec 2019 4 Comments

by writingforselfdiscovery in Bali, Uncategorized, wisdom, Writing Tags: , , ,

Muddling works for mojitos and mint juleps but it isn’t great for the mind. In fact it’s dreadful to feel at loose ends, directionless, lacking purpose. It can drag a person down.

For the past two months I’ve hosted a colony of ants under my skin. You may know the feeling. My body insisted on a constant state of motion, demanding long walks in excruciating 90°F (32°C) heat. I’d come home red-faced, drenched in sweat, ripping off clothes as I bee-lined for the shower.

For years I’ve guarded my solitude. Too much socializing drained me – at least that’s the story I told myself. Now I was the one organizing get-togethers, entertaining out-of-town guests, making any excuse I could conjure to keep myself busy.

Countless times I opened my computer, stared at the novel I’d been writing, and wondered where I’d found all those words. Two minutes, three, squinting, reading a few lines. Then I’d shake my head, hit the power-off button and message a friend or two to meet for lunch.

Distraction was the name of the game and I was winning.

During one of those get-togethers, the topic of vision boards came up. It seems my friends also felt anchorless. We agreed to meet at my house and see if we could muster clarity with the cut-and-paste approach. I found old issues of Vanity Fair and a National Geographic at the Smile Shop – Ubud’s Goodwill-type donation store – and snatched them up. Years ago in the States I had stacks of Architectural Digest, Vogue, Cosmopolitan, Elle, House Beautiful, and Country Living. But not here. Finding six dusty, ripped, moth-eaten magazines was like striking gold.

On the appointed day we gathered at the dining table with paints, pencils, markers, scissors, glue, and the ratty magazines. Pages turned. Nobody spoke. The air hung heavy and still with the intensity of our concentration. I hadn’t a clue what I was hoping to accomplish. But every-now-and-then a picture jumped out at me. Or a word leaped off the page. Soon I was snipping feverishly with a collection growing beside me.

We did well, but after forty-five minutes the silent focus was unsustainable.

“I’m hungry,” I said.

My friends looked up, dazed. “Well, it’s five o’clock somewhere. Let’s go eat.”

We chatted in the back garden of a nearby cafe that happened to have two-for-one happy-hour cocktails. And what luck! My favorite drink of all time was on offer: frozen mojitos. I wasn’t born during the depression but there’s something about two-for-one anything that makes it immoral to have just one. I had two frozen mojitos and a to-die-for roasted-veggie salad.

After whiling away a few more hours at the restaurant, my friends left promising they’d work on their projects at home. I felt the mellowing effect of my drinks but was strangely energized and eager to see if the stack of cut-outs had a common theme. Would a direction emerge? Had my subconscious or a bevy of capricious Bali spirits come out of hiding to help me choose those words and pictures?

I’m not a crafty person. Normally I’d devise any excuse to avoid this kind of activity. But as I arranged the images that same laser-like focus returned. Body, mind, and spirit engaged and I saw myself reflected in pictures and words that validated the very essence of who I am. It didn’t spell out in a sentence, Sherry, do this, yet the message was unmistakable.

You know the feeling when you’re telling someone your deepest truth and they get it? I felt like that looking at my board. A bubble of joy that made me laugh. A sense of relief that I’d worked through the fog and could see the way ahead. And gratitude. Gratitude for friends. Gratitude for the simplicity of a vision board to help gain self-knowledge. And gratitude for this place where energies abound to support the inner journey.

Jealous Lovers — Too Much of a Good Thing

03 Aug 2019 4 Comments

by writingforselfdiscovery in wisdom, Writing Tags: , , , ,

There’s a happy place between not enough and too much that yields peace. It applies to just about everything in life. Like the story of The Three Bears – the chair can be neither too big nor too small, the porridge neither too hot nor too cold, the bed neither too hard nor too soft. For ultimate satisfaction, everything should be just right.

When we strike that balance it’s like catching the jetstream. Moving forward is effortless. Doors open. The way is clear. We know where we’re going and how to get there. There’s time for family and friends, for satisfying work, for self-nurture.

That pretty much describes my life for the past seven years. There were times I was pulled a fraction off-center but when that happened the discomfort was acute and I’d hastily course-correct.

Then an extraordinary event took place.

Nervous unsettledness had plagued me for several weeks. On the day of my birthday in January, I pricked a pinhole in a piece of paper and squinted at the moon passing in front of the sun. That Capricorn solar eclipse delivered an unprecedented explosion of energy. I was slammed with possibility, power-packed potential that rocked my foundations.

In the days and weeks that followed a geyser of ideas spewed forth and I implemented all of them. I queried fifty-five agents hoping to get representation for my memoir. I changed the voice of several of the characters in the novel I was working on. I started writing a self-help book. I formulated a new business plan for a friend. And that was just the beginning.

The energy of that eclipse carried me for months.

Then I lost the desire to query, so I stopped. The tangled plot in the novel defied me. I left it and worked on the self-help book. That reached a sticky point. Muddled, mired in my plethora of projects, I lacked inspiration for any of them.

Sleep came easily at night but exhaustion overtook me the moment I dragged myself out of bed. So I napped and read, read and napped and left the house only when I had a previously arranged commitment.

The situation, so out of character, bewildered me.

Each one of my ideas had seemed brilliant at the time and I was still keen to develop them. But they all required intense focus, attention to detail, and loving care. I could summon zero motivation for any of it.

As I journaled those thoughts this morning, my pen returned to the word focus. I slashed lines of emphasis beneath it. Focus was what I couldn’t do right now and more than anything else, that’s what was required. I glanced at my desk where stacks of tablets, folders, a clipboard, and three pens bore silent testimony to the clutter of unfinished tasks.

I’d become entangled in too much of a good thing.

Now I’m faced with having to choose what gets shelved for a while and what goes forward. It’s painful. I decided avoidance was the best approach and wrote this article. There’s nothing like procrastination to delay the inevitable. And yet, describing my process has brought a new level of self-awareness.

I’ve realized I’m not someone who goes lightly into anything. Writing pulls words from my gut, runs sentences through my heart, and produces sweaty pages of honest prose that undress my innermost being. I demand it of myself. Each project is a jealous lover who requires my all. Knowing that, it’s probably better to be faithful to one at a time.

Please Don’t Ever Change

13 Apr 2019 16 Comments

by writingforselfdiscovery in Bali, wisdom, Writing Tags: , , ,

P1070490

When I look at this photo I want to laugh and cry and fall to my knees. I want to say to the young man planting grass, “Please, don’t ever change.”

What I actually said went something like this: “Those sticks, Ketut. Do you really expect them to grow?”

“Ya,” he replied. “Soon many.”

My only frame of reference to gardening was Minnesota. If you lopped a branch off a tree and stuck it in the ground in that climate, trust me. It absolutely would not grow.

Ketut gathered cast-off cuttings from nearby hotels and scrounged compost piles after dark. He dug up bushes from his family’s garden in the mountains near Kintamani and transplanted them here. He had a vision and the skills to manifest it. In no time the grass filled in and the stick-garden matured. There were papaya and banana trees, frangipani, and bougainvillea.

In spite of my skepticism, the plantings matured and multiplied. I added a gazebo to the once-upon-a-time stick-garden. Ketut installed electricity and a fan. Now I could have my coffee there and read or write surrounded by voluptuous tropical foliage.

It’s been five years since Ketut gathered branches and stuck them in the ground. Hundreds of plants bursting with fruit and flowers have emerged from those scant beginnings. I wonder, have I changed too? Have the seven years in Bali transformed me from the stick-garden I was when I arrived to someone fully alive?

I have more close friends, more visitors, more invitations, and more commitments than ever before. I’ve learned a foreign language, written two novels and a memoir, and had many articles published. I’ve leased land, built a house, and explored the mountains and coastlines of the island on the back of Ketut’s motorbike. I’ve held Writing for Self-Discovery workshops and my blog has brought others to Bali to imagine their own possibilities.

But what about self-discovery, the reason I began this writing journey in the first place? I had to dig for those answers and when I did I found I’ve become more honest. I’m willing to be seen hanging out my dirty laundry. I’m prepared to be disliked rather than sacrifice who I am. My list was revealing.

  • I let go of perfect – horns fit me better than haloes
  • I know things – it’s okay to be smart, intuitive and right
  • I’m worthy of love – self-love is essential, not selfish
  • I’ve developed a sense of humor – dry and warped but it works
  • I thrive in tropical heat – with an ice-cold mug of Bintang
  • I’m a creature of habit – don’t mess with my routine
  • I’m courageous – but definitely not fearless
  • I’ve become transparent – see my shadow? It’s really dark!
  • I need privacy – especially in the morning
  • I feared loneliness – it didn’t happen
  • I can manage unconditional love – but not marriage

And Ketut? The young man I hoped would never change? His smile is broader, his laughter even more infectious. He’s incapable of malice. His kindness is immeasurable.

Everything changes, but some things just get better.

Your Dull Suburban Heart Writing Memoir

21 Jul 2018 16 Comments

by writingforselfdiscovery in Uncategorized, wisdom, Writing Tags: , , , ,

There’s a way of expressing language that makes me want to slurp it up like melted ice cream, or a Killer Coconut Cocktail. For example, the following was taken from a speech Charlotte Wood made to an Emerging Writers’ Festival in New South Wales:

Allow your writing to expose your shameful ordinariness, your dull suburban heart, your fear, your humanity. Write truthfully into your frailties not away from them.

Your shameful ordinariness. Your dull suburban heart.

That’s what I mean. Using words we all know, Charlotte puts together phrases that make me want to read everything she’s ever written, want to feast on it hoping somehow it will nourish the same brilliance in me.

When I started the memoir, I didn’t know about writing truthfully into my frailties. But I did find myself stopping often in mid-sentence to ask, “Was that how it happened? Or is that just the story I’ve always told myself?”

I wrote the initial draft in first person present, reliving everything as though I was once again in that moment. It was tough. Really tough. The narrative was raw because my life was raw. I rehashed events taking no notice of the lessons they were meant to teach. But I finished it without slitting my wrists.

And sent it off to agents.

One answered. She said two things, 1) at 160,000 words it was too long, and 2) I hadn’t resolved the issues. She suggested slimming it to 80,000 words, an acceptable count for first time authors.

Okay, she wanted me to chop it in half. Sure, I could do that. And I did. But the second time through I told the story in third person past. It was me, older, wiser, pondering my younger self. As I wrote, it was obvious that of course I hadn’t resolved the issues; I hadn’t even recognized them. That’s when I started to question. Perhaps I hadn’t been the ravaged heroine I’d imagined. Perhaps I’d had more culpability in my tragedies than I’d been willing to admit. Victim energy leaked through the narrative and made me nauseous. Oooo. Ouch! Unacceptable.

That rewrite took the better part of a year. An entirely different story emerged, a truer one, and the word count was just a hair over 80,000.

I sent it off to agents.

One answered. She said, 1) the current market prefers to have memoir told in first person. There was no number two. As soon as I read it, I knew she was right. A compelling gut feeling told me that I’d needed that perspective for myself. But for the reader, the third person past point of view left too much distance between the main character and the action.

I’m currently in the third rewrite and once again it’s narrated in first person. But it’s coming from a much different place now. I won’t be well liked but I’ll be real. I won’t be a victim but readers will sympathize once they get over my serial stupidity. And the issues? Are they ever truly resolved? At least it will be clear that I’ve learned from my mistakes.

More than any therapist ever could, this labor of self-love, this monumental undertaking that has already spanned four years of my life, has helped me own my demons. Nobody really cares about Ms. Perfect. It’s the shadow that makes us interesting. In writing and rewriting life’s journey from three different perspectives, I’ve become honest about who I was and fiercely grateful for who I’ve become.

I’m about to send it off to agents…again!

When You’re Real

06 Jun 2018 10 Comments

by writingforselfdiscovery in Bali, wisdom, Writing Tags: , , , , ,

Most of my life I craved REAL while living the opposite. By the time I was in my late fifties I’d grown bone tired of keeping up appearances, looking happy when sad, successful when failing, confident when crushed, in love when…sigh….

Nobody said I had to fake it. The compulsion came from inside. The whole perfect facade of my life hid a mucked-up mess.

It was the story of The Velveteen Rabbit, by Margery Williams, that helped me change; helped me become REAL.

Isn't it ironic how this was one of my most favourite stories as a child and I really didn't know why ... but now I do.

It was the single most profound thing I’d ever read. It became my holy book, lines underscored, pages earmarked, and this paragraph especially, tear stained.

I look back on that time often, now that my joints are loose (more likely stiff) my hair’s been rubbed off (gotten thin) and my eyes have fallen out (lasik surgery). In spite of all evidence to the contrary, I don’t feel a bit ugly. I surround myself with REAL people, and they understand.

I no longer require pristine perfection in other things, either. Like, for instance my REAL groceries from the Ubud morning market. Far from the scrubbed and sanitized, shrink wrapped, color enhanced, chemical infused products proliferating the shelves in the local grocery stores, my food is brought in battered trucks fresh from the villages at 5:00 a.m.

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Ketut visits the market pre-dawn and does all the shopping. When I realized a year ago that I was protein deficient and needed to add a little meat to my vegetarian diet, I asked him if he could get chicken at the market. His answer was lengthy. Not only could he get it, he could get it fried, open fire roasted, grilled, steamed in banana leaves with Balinese bumbu, made into satays, and raw. I decided to try the fire roasted. He looked happy.

Next morning the grossest looking fowl I’d ever seen (exactly like the one above) arrived on my counter top. I’m ashamed to admit this now, but I squeaked when I saw it. I scream at snakes, most everything else that surprises me gets a squeak. I asked Ketut to take it to his kitchen, remove the head and feet, and return it looking less like it might get up and walk. He said I should use those parts to make soup. I told him he was welcome to have them for that or any other purpose just please take them away.

Of course it turned out that the scary bird was the most delicious meat I’d ever eaten. I’m sure it had been free-ranging, scratching and pecking in the family compound only minutes before it was captured, de-feathered, gutted, cleaned, and roasted over the smoking fire.

The brilliant green spinach offered up a few surprises of it’s own. It’s locally grown and organic. How do I know? It comes complete with bugs still residing in the leaves. The ones I miss during cleaning come floating to the top when I boil it for dinner.

And the eggs…?

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The eggs still have REAL poop on them!

I derive such pleasure from the simplicity. These products haven’t been cleaned up and made presentable. They come from farmers living a few miles away who load their trucks at o-dark-thirty and rumble into town. I love knowing that by avoiding the grocery stores and purchasing from the morning market I’m supporting independent family businesses, REAL people with REAL food.

Sometimes I wonder: What if I’d never read The Velveteen Rabbit? Would I still be living a soulless life? Words have incredible power to inform and transform. That little book happened to fall into my hands at precisely the time I was ripe for it’s message. And oh what bliss: the intoxicating magic of REAL!

 

 

 

 

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