Getting Up Off the Sofa

Went out kayaking today before hitting the computer, and now I feel wonderful. Those disciplined souls who get themselves to run in the mornings are on to something; they do get their reward for popping/dragging out of bed early.

This was my first "serious" paddle of the season. I did go out once in boots and raingear before it was warm enough to plant, but then when gardening weather started, I decided to specialize and have spent my spare time in the dirt. But as of June 1, tomorrow, there's no point in planting anything in North Carolina; too hot.

Perfect time to break out my little inflatable Bold Boat and hit bright, sunny Jordan Lake under a gorgeous sky. A lot of sailboats were out. The whole scene looked happy. And now I have the triple endorphin rush of having exercised, been outdoors, and been on the water.

I need to remember such moments in a visceral way in order to get myself into motion again next weekend. Because even fun things can take some effort, some wrestling with equipment, etc.

Lake/boat pictures to come, BTW

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Get a View from the Trees

Bold idea: Live up in the trees. Perhaps because it's the leafy season, this idea is very appealing to me...and to others, because I keep seeing it show up on-line and off. I live in the woods (in a house) surrounded by trees. And we have a tree platform, which can help to give a person perspective. I still like the idea of Swiss Family Robinson, remember the movie images of the house as well. I climbed trees occasionally as late as my undergraduate years. Maybe it's not too late.

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"Like Streams in the Desert"

Here's a boldness break of a rather different sort than the laughing Buddha on the train earlier this week. (A boldness break is a brief time-out that re-juices imagination and creative courage.)

"Like Streams in the Desert" is an orchestral piece composed in honor of the 50th anniversary of Israel by my friend-from-first-grade Meira Warshauer. She and I got to be buddies out at the swings at recess. In second grade when she won the drawing to take home the room-size Santa Claus mural the class had pasted together, she gave it to me; her family did Hannukah and not Christmas.

When I saw in my email the note about her work on video on Youtube, it was holidays all over again, 9:54 seconds worth of her music while the camera soars over water-in-the-desert images from artist Shoshanna Brombacher, who in this work reminds me simultaneously of Chagall, Van Gogh, and Georgia O'Keefe. (Wow, that sentence covers a lot of territory. Oh, the pleasures of editorless blogging!)

Meira's music is performed here by Slovak Radio Symphony Orchestra on a video developed by Michael Bregman. The CD of her Torah-inspired music is available from Albany Records, this piece commissioned and premiered by Neal Gittleman and the Dayton Philharmonic.

For the musically literate, here's a review: "spiritually ecstatic, beautifully felt... representation of [the] mystical creative process." If you're in the mood for a stream in a desert, go listen and watch for a few minutes. It's profoundly refreshing.

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The Masks Fear Wears

In answer to: "how do we hide our fears?" a question posed in the comments by Debbie, I did a bit of research. I suspect there are many more items that could be added.

*Misplaced anger is a method that gives the illusion of control and safety. More on this from psychology professor Jennifer Freyd of the University of Oregon

*Pretense or pretentiousness. See Sarah Stewart comment on Intuitive Roots.

*Addictions and reflexive habits.

*Emotional numbness.

*"One of the worst ways we hide fear is by hiding behind our Bibles and theology. This happens when knowing all the right answers and being able to correct others becomes more important then knowing and loving God and knowing and loving people." From The Firehouse Church in Bremerton, Washington.

*Tension, muscular hyperreadiness.

*Stereotyping, rigid thinking about "the enemy" From The Center for Media Literacy

*General controlling behavior

*Phobias, replacing one fear with another. The Acadia Hospital

*Compulsive behaviors that give the illusion of order

*Anonymity

*"Going along"



"The best way to deal with fear is to stop pretending to be fearless. Paradoxically, the more you deny fear, the more likely it is to dominate you. Tune into your fear, give it a voice, enter into a dialogue with it, do what you can to reduce the risk, and you will find yourself more able to take risks....Behind fear lies excitement." From David Cornfield atThe Creative Edge

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Boddhisatva in Metro

Watch how this guy transforms the dour crowd in a subway car. You'd think, at the start of the film, that these people were on their way to their execution. Not so. The film is 6 minutes and 47 seconds that will embolden your day.

Made by Belgian director Christine Rabette in 2003. The actual title is Merci! The Boddhisatva title was added (in Russian) by whoever put it on Youtube.

Note: a boddhisatva is someone who has attained release from the cycle of rebirths but chooses to live human lives in order to help others.





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Post-Memorial Day Post

I'm not good military material: don't care for violence, hierarchies, dressing alike, guns, or having a boss.

But hearing the stories of war yesterday on NPR stirred me, as it was supposed to. I thought about soldiers much of the day.

One of the things that struck me is how many of them think back to their wartimes as both the best and worst parts of their lives. The good part, it seems, was the intensity--the life-or-death seriousness--and the bonds with comrades, the willingness to risk literally taking a bullet for another.

Being whole-heartedly a part of something huge feels good to people. Acting with courage feels good, even on the home front, when it may seem that the stakes are smaller.






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Having To Wait

The dreadful condition of waiting, not-acting, and not-being-able-to-find-out is a hard one for me and for a lot of folks. I just ran across a list of stupid, energy-wasting things we tend to do to cope with this situation on "Tolerating Uncertainty."

1 Seeking excessive reassurance from others
2 List-making
3 Double checking
4 Refusing to delegate
5 Procrastination/avoidance
6 Distraction

These certainly are familiar to me. I saw this list and thought: Busted! I'm particularly fond of numbers 2 through 5. I think there's some value for me in seeing this list. It identifies a pattern I can be more careful to avoid.





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Getting Rid of the Fear of Success

"It is often when our futures look brightest that our resolve crumbles and we veer off course." From the Daily Om, "Boldly Growing Into Your Own Fear of the Future"

So what do we do about this? The Daily Om advises: Replaces negative thoughts with encouraging facts. "Tell yourself that the inevitability of your success is based not on luck or a universal mistake but on your already established talents, drive, imagination, and inner strength. Each time you overcome your fear of the future, you chip away at its very foundations. Eventually, you will clear a gap through which you can gaze upon the future with unhindered optimism."

I've never felt I had any fear of success. But I know that I can get agitated when more than one suitor, personal or professional, is competing for my attention. I also think that this kind of fear hides in the basement and sends obstacles up to the first floor. So I do think it's important to pay attention to whether such a fear might be getting in the way.




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Gutsy Honeysuckle

Yes, I know that honeysuckle is considered an environmental threat because it overwhelms native plants and a lot of gardeners rip it out.

However, I love it. It's beautiful and it smells good and it brings back lovely memories from my childhood.

I'm blogging about it because, though I see the problems, I admire its tenacity and ability to gracefully flourish.







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Elizabeth Edwards Sets a Good Example

Here's to Elizabeth Edwards for speaking up and writing her book!

Her whole life has been made public and has been discussed all over the country by others, including John Edwards. I'm astonished at the critics who think that she should not weigh in on the subject herself.

She has done so in a manner that seems to me honest and dignified. I think it sets a better example for her kids than would hiding out from the whole world.







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Cayce on Intuition

From Edgar Cayce, "the 'sleeping prophet,' the 'father of holistic medicine,' and the most documented psychic of the 20th century":

"The more and more each is impelled by that which is intuitive, or the relying upon the soul force within, the greater, the farther, the deeper, the broader, the more constructive may be the result."
Edgar Cayce Reading 792-2 (This quote from the site of Melissa Alvarez, metaphysical writer.)

Cayce left not only thousands of readings and the health advice therein, but a center for continuing study at Virginia Beach (good choice of locations): Association for Research and Enlightenment (A.R.E.)

I've been to A.R.E. a couple of times, which has a spa run on Caycean teaching, with excellent massages, and a terrific metaphysical library, speakers and classes, etc.




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Intuition

In the last 24 hours, I've had a strong sense that I've lately neglected the intuition part of my operation: both for information gathering and decision making. I'd say that's been going on for 2 to 3 years.

I've been meditating again this year, after a long lapse. I once went seven years when I missed only a couple of days of meditating. Then I stopped. What I decided at that time was to do it when I felt like it. That turned out to be never.

So in January I started requiring 20 minutes a day of myself. Now, as during those earlier years, it's good for my writing. I also feel that that 20 minutes has led me the recognition that I've been ignoring a major resource. And that can make a person start feeling a bit parched.

So now I'm reminding myself to make sure I've consulted God and my unconscious and any other unseen forces when I'm wrestling with specific questions.

I've also been reading Judith Orloff's Second Sight. In fact, I brought it to my office to read with lunch. That's always a sign that a book really has hold of me.



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Do Your Own Thing

The fellow who runs this new Project Mojave undertaking seems to have a passion for helping people get loose from cubicles and pursue their own interests on their own time. Having been a freelancer since I was 22 (I'm now 60), I very much favor this.

Click to the site and learn how to set up an internet business using expertise you already have. Even if you don't want to do precisely that, it's worth a look, if you like the idea of doing your own thing.



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Find the Right Risk

A discovery by Mamie, who is definitely the Quote Queen:

"If you have no anxiety, the risk you face is probably not worthy of you. Only risks you have outgrown don't frighten you." - David Viscott

I've also noticed that sometimes I go straight from scared to bored. Scared is better. But it would be nice to linger at comfortably interested. I'm always imagining other people are having that experience.

Another good quote from this Viscott fellow: "There is some place where your specialties can shine. Somewhere that difference can be expressed. It's up to you to find it, and you can."






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Boy Wonder Does Dorm Room Decor With Flair

What inspired the cleanup I posted about yesterday was a story in the design issue of New York magazine about a college senior and the way he has decorated his dorm room.

Just imagine having your old dorm room's decor featured in New York. Not mine, though I had a very nice paper goldfish hanging from the curtain rod, a Jackson Pollock poster on the wall and blue and green curtains I was proud of.

Maximilian Sinsteden has definitely outdone that decor. Moreover, he already has clients for a design business.

"By the time Sinsteden was 12 years old, he’d redecorated most of the rooms in his parents’ house a few times, and had started in on the guest bedrooms of family friends. He had a precocious understanding of the perfect detail." At 15 he was working for a designer, but has never had any formal design training. His first solo job--as a junior in college--was to do the interior of a 78 foot yacht.

Go look at what he has done to his room (click on New York above). This is one bold young man. It takes taste, imagination, and courage. Some money too, but money alone can't do this. And he knows his way around a thrift, as well as how to borrow well from friends and relatives. And how to ignore any social pressures on a guy to play football instead.

The word is getting around about his skills. The article about him ran last week and a Google search of his name plus the word "dorm" produced over 9,000 sites. Being-red has additional photos.






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Cleaning Out My Closet

The exceptionally bold act of cleaning out the bedroom closet can be so liberating.

This past Sunday I set to it, and sent 18 articles of clothing away to new lives elsewhere. (including the rag bag.) Note the "going out" pile.

One item had to be commemorated with a portrait: the jaunty sunglasses skirt, which has traveled with me to many a memorable occasion. Unfortunately the black background has started getting that rusty green cast that aging black fabric gets.

I don't understand why cleaning out a closet, pruning a bit, is so invigorating. But it is. And I was so energized afterwards, I went outside and cut a few branches off of big shrubs, opened the place up to a little more light.









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Ambitious and Feminine

See, it's possible to be both ambitious and feminine. These graceful rambling roses are already to the second-floor of our house. And they're not strident or driven.





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Get Your Message Across

See this yellow-backed vehicle? The owner of this car was seizing an opportunity. Written on the back is a message that says, in essence: okay, while you're sitting in traffic behind me, why not write this phone number down so you'll have it when you need it. The number is for a towing company. I thought it was a fine piece of advertising. I felt as if I was being addressed personally.


(Sorry about the worse-even-than-usual quality of the photography: it was one shot with a cell phone on a rainy day while driving a car with a dirty windshield with hand-painted morning glories on the hood and my arm in the way.)

My own car has a license plate that says SISINDIA for my novel Sister India. But that's really more for fun, for vanity, than anything else.

I'm wondering what other surprising inventive everyday ways there are for a writer/artist/entrepreneur to get his/her message across. Some artists cringe at advertising and self-promotion. Though we vigorously want publishers and galleries to invest heavily in promoting our work. And some madly promote and then pretend to be shy.

To me, to create the work and then decline to help it out into the world is like not taking care of the dog. It's falling down on the job.

So this past week I started running a wee ad for my critique services for writers. Never did this before. It's one of those little boxes on the right side of a Google page, the copy below, but with lines around it.

Get Book Feedback
Intensive Report: Novel/ Nonfiction
From NYT Notable Writer
www.peggypayne.com/service.html

The "NYT Notable" means that Sister India was a New York Times Notable Book of the Year. Google Advertising wouldn't allow me to use the whole name in the ad because of trademark worries or some such.

So far it has appeared 65,937 times (when someone enters a phrase like "feedback on my novel"), been clicked on 11 times, and cost me $9.59. Haven't heard yet, that I know of, from anyone who clicked it, but we'll see. It's kind-a fun, like having a fishing line in the water.



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Term Paper? Essay? Help Is at Hand

The bad kind of bold: a website called Free Essays that offers 32,000 "Free Essays for All Students."

The student who is eager for knowledge can find a paper on any of a huge and sometimes hilarious selection of subjects. For example: "Plagerism" (sic). And a search for papers that deal with personal courage turned up 317 choices, one labelled Values.

Click on PeerPapers on this site and you'll find an archive of 190,000. "Less Work, More Weekend" is the slogan. Browsers are informed that using one of these papers as a guide is not plagiarism, copying it is.

Type in the keyword "honor," and a list of an even 1,000 essays and term papers comes up. One of them begins: "Why do students cheat? This is an age-old question...."

It's even possible to find a paper on "Why I Want to Become a Nurse." Surely, if one wants to be a nurse, one is the authority on why.

...Though I once knew a man whose first writing success was a grade school personal essay on the assignment "Why I Love the Detroit Symphony." He was having trouble writing it. His much-older sister helped him with it a lot. He won a highly-publicized award for the work. His sister asked him if he had any doubts about accepting full credit. He absolutely did not. He went on to become a respected novelist.

I doubt if his story is typical.

A few other ironic topics in the essay libraries:
Apathy
Critical Thinkin (sic)
The Time I Made a Fool of Myself
Are We More Creative Today
How People Learn

And some charmingly specialized ones:
Slime Molds
Raving Is A Lifestyle
Biotreatment Of Wastewater Using Aquatic Invertebrates, Daphnia Magna And Paramecium Caudatum
Pear Culturing in India
Krispy Kreme Doughnuts, Inc.

Visitors are invited to donate papers and to alert headquarters if any papers on the sites are discovered to be of questionable quality.

Custom essays are available starting at $19.95 a page.

Approximately 368,000 google searches were done in April for the phrase "term paper" and over 9 million for "essay."

This rant is making me feel like a back-in-my-day old blowhard. So I'm doing a search for a paper on the hackneyed "old-fart" question: what's the world coming to? All I get was a paper on Mad Cow Disease.

So I look up "hookups" and get an essay: "Is The Traditional Date Dying" It's worth a visit.




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Thinking (and Acting) Outside the Therapy Session

I'm a huge fan of psychotherapy. One stretch of 11 sessions over a few months when I was 32 years old led me to start writing fiction and to get (happily) married. We celebrated our 25th anniversary in December. And, BTW, I married a therapist.

At the same time, I think it's important not to act like the whole world is a therapy group. Both self-questioning (to which I'm prone) and processing every human interaction can get really annoying--and counterproductive!-- if they turn into a full-time thing.

So I was delighted to find a wise blogger who agrees with me: a singer who writes about vivid living. Christine Kane's blog has lots of good lists of tips. Here's item number 7 from "10 Ways to Set a Powerful Intent."



"Move out of therapy thinking and into forward thinking.

Therapy is and has been a great help to many of us, AND it can be easy to get stuck in seeing yourself as flawed. It’s a habit. Therapy thinking says, “I have to get it all fixed before I can move on to better things.” Forward thinking says, “What would happen if I acted in spite of how I’m feeling about my life, or my capabilities?”

When it comes right down to it, we’re all complete train wrecks. Have a little celebration about your own train-wreck-ed-ness (invite the rest of us too), and then move forward, take actions, and learn that it is possible to function well without having figured it all out."


My fellow train wrecks, she's right. My own wise Mom tends to say: "Life is not about getting ready." And: "Do something, if it's wrong." This shorthand does not mean to go rob a bank, it means take some action that would appear to be toward the good and if that doesn't work, modify it or try something else. In other words: rock on!

(And have a Happy Mother's Day today.)






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Bold Roses

Came home from work last night to find that my rambling roses had exploded into bloom. They're very pale pink and they looked spectacular (by the standards of my garden) even in the dark as I drove up.

Last year (first season) they bloomed a little, and then grew like crazy everywhere, up to the second floor, pushing up against a window, etc.

I like their doing this all at once, instead of tiptoeing out, a few and then a few more. It seems both bold and generous.






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Itchy for a Call

Since Monday I've been on the alert for a phone call. Monday is when the itching started. First my head, then an arm...and so on. It took me four days of scratching to think what is usually my first thought about any physical complaint: could this all be IN my head rather than on it?

That thought, as well as a chat at dinner with psychologist/hypnotist husband Bob put a sudden and total end to Itchy-and-Scratchy. The problem was gone. It should always be so easy.

And: I should refrain from using my creativity and magic in this way. There's no end to the trouble I can make for myself. Better to make up novels.

Bob reminded me of a New Yorker article on itching and the mind, aptly titled "The Itch." that talks about how the mind may be filling in info from tiny bits of data: connect-the-dots. Called the "brain's best guess."

My research also turned up someone who itched during yoga, another whose feet itched when she washed dishes, and one who itched whenever her hands were full with two bags.

With me and the business of a phone call, I think it may come down to the fact that I'd rather be active than passive, rather do something than wait. Surely I can find something better to do.

I'm starting to feel a faint tickle as I write this. Must stop now.





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New Flavor, New Law

Four times a day forever, a friend of mine has to drink a tall glass of water with a vile pink powder stirred into it. It's medication.

Yesterday she called the manufacturer, their Customer Service Department, and asked if they would please develop a new flavor. The customer rep fumbled about and then sent her call to the Regulatory Department. They're probably not going to be the ones to add mango or licorice or bubble gum to their stock. But someone may. I wouldn't be surprised.

What I like is her taking the initiative to go to the source and ask for a change. It costs nothing to dial an 800 number and sometimes it works.

By contrast, another friend said to me once, "But it's the law. You can't change the law."

Yes, you can. I covered the NC state legislature for years for the Norfolk Virginian-Pilot newspaper and on NC public TV. This gave me the opportunity to see that laws are made up, just like fiction except that lawmaking is done by committees. In this country, we elect the committees, and we can go talk to them. See: "How to Lobby a Bill into Law." It's a lot of work, but it can be done. Realizing that is a reminder of how many other things are also possible.




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Creating for a New Generation

Since posting about star designer Philippe Starck, I learned that he gave one of those famous TED speeches, where you give the talk of your lifetime in 18 minutes: a great concept and a great series.

So I went to listen to Starck's TED talk. A little frustrating, a lot inspiring. This man looks at the truly big picture in order to design the humblest objects (he has also designed some pretty grand ones.)

To design a toothbrush, he says, you have to think of the mouth and the species the mouth belongs to. And that subject took him back to the origins of life about 4 billion years ago. The bacteria back then had no idea what we would be like today. "Today we have no idea what we'll be in 4 billion years....Every generation thinks he's the final one."

But we're not the final one, and we're still evolving. So, the job of each of us is "to be a good mutant," and help to create the tools that the next generation will need to do their best for those who succeed them. That's what keeps him working, he says, even when he's designing something as lowly as a toilet brush.

It seems to me that that kind of thinking can take the pressure off. If what I'm doing is just taking the next step, then I'm simply playing my part in a group effort. Starck says that we don't have to be geniuses, we just have to participate.






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One Brave Flower

This year's crop of irises at my house turned out to be a total of one. I'm not sure what I'm doing wrong, whether it's the increasing shade, the fact that the rhizomes are buried in periwinkles or the wrong fertilizer, but my once lush iris patch has pretty much given up. (And I have divided them!)

Still, this year there is the one bold yellow iris that has the spunk to stand alone.

I just googled this iris and the website I read said it's a pest and told how to get rid of it. I don't need help with making things not grow. I say: celebrate this hardy individual.







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Your Formula for Creativity

The astonishing designer Philippe Starck told Fast Company magazine his formula for creativity: "Every morning, take royal jelly and omega-3 oil, eat oysters, and have a good sexual life. Don't care about anything, and never listen to anybody. Be free."

Do you have a formula for creativity? Mine is show up and write. But I've yet to reach the Starck level of success. Maybe I should rethink.

(Royal jelly is produced by the salivary glands of worker bees and fed to up-and-coming queen bees.)






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The Puppy Portrait

The puppy-in-the-garden-with-Bob portrait is a tradition at my house. I've taken a picture of Bob holding each subsequent pup, but we waited too late to shoot this one.

Aura at 5-ish months weighs about 75 pounds. She may look uncomfortable, but she was fine. Bob, on the other hand, says he's not hoisting any more dogs this size.

Aura will weigh in at about 140 when she's grown. It takes a bold dog person to take on a dog this size. And he already has another mastiff type dog who outweighs me. It's a team of canine Clydesdales.







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Sunlight Shining Through Cobalt blue

Simply because my new novel is called "Cobalt Blue" and I'm in a novel-aggrandizing mood...



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Launch Your Own Adventure

It's Friday, day of the planet Venus, the Roman goddess of love. It's spring. The weather is gorgeous, at least here in Raleigh. So think of a good adventure to launch, large or small, to celebrate the day and the season. (The beauty bush at the edge of my woodland garden is celebrating.)



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