Gandhi as Shy Guy

Gandhi, one of my often-mentioned heroes, is an encouraging example in part because of his rough start.

Prior to peacefully running the British out of India, he was a lawyer who was too cowed to speak up in court. He lost case after case. "He was a total failure," writes Paul Rogat Loeb in an AARP Bulletin piece adapted from his book Soul of a Citizen. Gandhi's Indian family "sent him off to South Africa, where he found his voice by challenging racial segregation."

It's a truism of public speaking that we lose any fear of it once what we have to say becomes more important than our personal performance.

"I love viewing Gandhi not as the master strategist of social change," Loeb writes, "but as someone who first was literally tongue-tied, shy and intimidated."

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Daily Uncertainty, Daily Strength

"Creativeness is correlated with the ability to withstand the lack of structure, the lack of future, the lack of predictability, of control, the tolerance for ambiguity, for planlessness." Maslow on Management, Abraham Maslow


In about my second year of freelancing (1973), I would walk from my parking place to my office in the mornings, often amazed that the buildings were already there and weren't something I had to fling up one either side of me as I walked. That's how unstructured self-employment felt a lot of the time then.

I often still feel that writing a novel is sketching the first step of a flight of stairs, stepping up onto it, then drawing another step that's supposed to hold my weight. And so on.

I'm not a great fan of ambiguity, though I do find an uncertain future (professionally) to be exciting. Most of us like some wobble room, and get nervous about other aspects of facing the great void. But getting used to that is part of the job; it goes with the turf.

The work is both conscious and unconscious. In addition to the discipline of writing, it requires some trust that the path you're on, with all its detours, is worth taking. Practically, that means staying willing to proceed even when you don't know what's up ahead.

E.L. Doctorow said that writing is like driving at night, you can only see as far as the headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way.

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Follow Your Bliss

Follow an interest with passion and energy and it becomes very particular. Not just interest in dogs, but deepening interest in particular breeds or particular aspects of dog training or some such. Husband Bob is fascinated by big exotic breeds. Here's a Boerboel (a South African mastiff type) that we drove several hours to meet, never mind that we already have one at home.

I consider following an interest where it leads to be a bold and enriching exploration.

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Raising Children Who Shine

"I want their lives to always feel full and purpose-driven. I want to watch them as they continue to sprout new feathers on their wings and as they share their gifts with the world." From the blog of regular contributor Debbie, who writes about her "four angel daughters."

You have to see the photos of "Little Miss Fierce," Angel Daughter Number Four dancing hip-hop. They're as good as hearing the beat of the music itself. You'll want to dance to your own lively beat.

And don't miss what their momma has to say. On an earlier post, she talks about the kind of encouragement she received:

"My dad is a tough man, but he is also an incredible cheerleader. In so many ways, I am who I am because of him. A realist who chooses to believe that we can all do great things.

Strive to do something great. Not perfect, just fantastic."




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Turkey Town

The pig spa that I wrote about here a couple of weeks ago has been rivaled in real life.

A travel story in my local paper had turned out to be an April Fool’s trick on us readers. I believed it—and then posted here about the bold deception. The story described an inn where the happy guest can pat pigs, eat a pork diet, and have beauty treatments involving bacon fat.

So yesterday I was flipping through an old Guideposts magazine and came upon: Cornwell’s Turkeyville! This time the place is for real.

On a patch of farmland north of Marshall, Michigan, is a destination dedicated to pleasures provided by the turkey. In addition to the restaurant that cooks 20,000 birds a year, there’s a dinner theatre, an ice cream parlor offering Turkey Trax ice cream, a gift shop, a playground, and a turkey pen. Writer Mary Lou Carney noted some of the kinds of turkey sandwiches available, including buttered turkey, turkey salad, sloppy tom, smoked turkey. Or you could dig into turkey stir fry.

The only thing missing here was a turkey skin conditioner. At least it wasn’t noted in the article.

My point (aside from wonderment at the existence of such a place): If turkey’s your thing, don’t hold back. If you want to build a pig spa, do it. No joke. The world may very well beat a path to your door.





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A Passion for Mastiffs

A big piece of the boldness equation is going full-tilt after what draws you, what you care about.

Saturday night my dear old friend Susie came to dinner; we had not seen each other in 41 years. Until our mid-teens, we lived one door away from each other, and had played together from my earliest memory. Then she moved.

The Internet (with the assistance of my brother Harry) reconnected us. She lives only three hours away, and she was traveling with four Tibetan mastiffs.

Turns out that she, Susie Ochsenbein, has a passion for these huge beautiful dogs and has traveled over much of the world showing, judging, visiting, and studying them. She's a global expert on these animals. And has 13 of her own. That's pretty close to an actual ton of live dog.

The one I got to meet was a sweet-tempered, quiet girl with a gorgeous fluffy coat, as they all seem to have. She's only a year old and about the size of a very large bulldog.

What strikes me even more than the wonder of these handsome dogs is Susie's devotion to them, her knowledge and her passion. I love to see anyone seize life that way; and that's what I think is happening when we follow our true and abiding interests.

It's especially nice when it's my old pal.



From a Joseph Campbell interview with Bill Moyers: "...If you do follow your bliss you put yourself on a kind of track that has been there all the while, waiting for you, and the life that you ought to be living is the one you are living. When you can see that, you begin to meet people who are in your field of bliss, and they open doors to you. I say, follow your bliss and don't be afraid, and doors will open where you didn't know they were going to be."






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Family History Mania Update

I just put in the mail the family history I threw together over five intense days; sent it to my Mom for her birthday. Now I feel like I finished exams, even more so than I do when finishing the draft of a book.

I worked on this little 30 page item like a madwoman. It's the story of my mother's father's family. It's no dissertation; I used mainly secondary sources and included stories that have been handed down, and a file of old clippings and notes that others had amassed, and internet sources, such as websites done by other people chasing Tuckers and Woffords, and ancestry archives.

I did write one email to someone who'd done a Tucker site, asking him a question about a man named John Tucker who was in Virginia or Maryland in about 1750. Turned out the wife of the man at that website is my second cousin. Astounding to all concerned! She and I are both descended from the son of a Civil War captain who died at the Battle of Second Manassas at the time that his son, our most recent ancestor, was two years old.

The impact of this frenzied chronology exercise on me is that I learned in a gut way how hard life used to be, how hard it was until fairly recent decades. I knew intellectually, of course. But now I feel it. I think it burned up more boldness just to live daily life not so very long ago.

For one thing, I discovered that my generation is the first in this side of my family not to go to war. For hundreds of years on end, the men fought and the women usually had six or nine babies. A lot of those babies died. And the men so often died early, leaving the women with all those kids.

This is such old news. But it feels new whenever it strikes emotionally.

I'm glad I get to use my store of courage for edgy writing and such, not, as one of my foremothers did, by driving a covered wagon across three states with six small daughters in tow after her husband disappeared. This sort of thing can easily put problems that occur at a desk into perspective.










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Following a Mania

For the last three days, I've worked enormous numbers of hours on an unlikely-for-me project: a bit of genealogy that I'm turning into a riveting story of one line of my family: the Tuckers and Woffords. Months ago my mother gave me a folder about her father's family, a bunch of bits and pieces, and said, "Here you take this." So I decided to flesh it out, and finally got serious on Saturday and am trying to get it ready to mail to Mom in time for her 87th b'day this weekend.

Inevitably, answering a few questions led me to a few more questions and I took the research back 200 more years, into the late 1500s in England--and quite a number of juicy details. Now I see why people do this. It satisfies the lifelong need created by reading Nancy Drews.

Joseph Campbell advises: "Follow your bliss." I take that to mean being really committed to the pursuuits that are really important to me; and I've structured my life to be able to do that. But this has a sudden fire to it that says: Do this now! Don't stop! Don't eat! It's exciting. And, as of this moment, exhausting.

Have you had this experience? And did it involve chasing ancestors? I'm more measured about writing books and articles, I've been doing it so long. It's nice to feel this kind of fire. Wipe-out refreshing.



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Secret of Happiness (Bold Title, Yes?)

“We act as though comfort and luxury were the chief requirements of life, when all we need to make us happy is something to be enthusiastic about.” --Charles Kingsley, nineteenth century English minister who wrote The Water-Babies: A Fairy Tale for a Land Baby, as well as being chaplain to Queen Victoria.

Quoted on The Happiness Project

(The very thought of water babies makes me both happy and enthusiastic. And I'm not even a huge fan of "cute," but I do find delightful the idea of chubby young things paddling about in exotic mysterious realms.)





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Bold Relationships

I have a box of quotes on my desk: the draw-one-a-day kind of collection. Today's card: "Courage opens the heart." I googled the sentence and found the source: Rob Kall, who has apparently given such matters a lot of thought.

Another of his I found particularly interesting is in the form of a question: "How much pleasure can you tolerate before you can't take it anymore?" The conventional wisdom is that we stick with what feels good, but it's not always true. The phrase "too rich for my blood" is often used to describe such situations. Maybe it's fear that comes from having something that we constantly fear losing.

I can remember romances in my single days that inspired that feeling; that it would be easier to be out of it than to feel that it might end any minute. Paradoxical, but that kind of thinking can really be tenacious.

I'm very happily (and intensely) married for 25 years now; it was several years into the marriage before I completely relaxed. Husband Bob kept saying, "Just take me for granted." He finally convinced me, or I finally believed him. I also feel that if he took off now, I'd already have had a bounteous share of happy marriage.

I think fully enjoying something is the antidote to the fear of it all ending, which, for some of us, takes practice.

(A psychologist friend Bryce Kaye has a chapter online from his book The Marital First Aid Kit on what he calls "hedonic inhibition" in relationships, about the inner stuff that gets in the way of having a whole lot of fun.)

(And thanks, Mamie, who is the source of the quote box, and author of the blog Can I Do It?)



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Support Group

Last night I went to the Raleigh Arts Commission's awards ceremony for the annual Medal of the Arts and came away inspired to do things! make art! persevere!

I also heard about an informal campaign group I was initially asked to join: a bunch of women getting together to ponder how to support Obama. At the time I said: I'm already doing all I have time to do; in truth I could have made time for more.

Last night, I heard about how, after two meetings, this group has evolved. It went from a few women to 60-some between meetings one and two. The name is: GASP. Girlfriends Appalled by Sarah Palin. And as my friend at the party told me, "we aren't just bitchin'." They're all taking assignments to register, drive voters, take food to volunteers, etc. It's impressive.

Which brings me to my point: the support of the group. My campaign efforts have faltered, I think, because I feel like a solitary clipboard wandering the streets. No fault of the campaign's; I just haven't attended the get-togethers that I could have.

Whereas, for my writing I've always had the support of various groups. From parents and teachers in my childhood, to my writer-buddies and my weekly writing group now.

It makes a huge difference. So, if you find your bold creative efforts faltering, if your commitment seems to be fraying, try getting a few kindred spirits to cheer you on. It's amazing what booster rockets a few knowledgeable buddies can be.


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Dream Up an Innovative Response

Grabbed a tape I'd had for years yesterday to listen to riding in to my office: "The Wild Woman Archetype" from Clarissa Pinkola Estes, author of Women Who Run with the Wolves.

The tape is billed as "Myths and Stories about the Instinctual Nature of Women."

Now, I'm one who thinks that guys are pretty instinctual, too.

But it's also true that women historically have had much less freedom to exercise their/our instincts. The sexual double standard of my growing-up years, for one annoying example.

What stuck with me from what I listened to was about how to react in a crisis, or a situation where you're stuck with severe limits. What Estes advises is: don't be a martyr, be innovative. Stick with your dreams and plans and passion, and figure out ways to get where you're going, or as close as you can, even though you may be working with some tough conditions. Like financial pressure, burdensome obligations, illness, any of that stuff.

If we can't use it, we gotta figure how to work around it.

Get where we're going, anyway.




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