So when waiting is wearing us down, here's a bold thought: there's no reason to fear, because we're already going through the worst of it. Getting the news, whatever it is, will provide some relief.
Thursday, June 18, 2009
How to Stand Waiting for News
A curious thing about waiting: some research I read recently said that people who've recently learned they have cancer are in better shape emotionally and show less physiological sign of stress than those who are waiting to hear their biopsy results.
So when waiting is wearing us down, here's a bold thought: there's no reason to fear, because we're already going through the worst of it. Getting the news, whatever it is, will provide some relief.
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So when waiting is wearing us down, here's a bold thought: there's no reason to fear, because we're already going through the worst of it. Getting the news, whatever it is, will provide some relief.
Wednesday, June 17, 2009
Hair Grows Back: Help with Decision-Making
Just got my every-six-weeks-or-so trim and it made me think of the hesitation many of us have about making radical recreational hair changes.
For decades, I had long straight hair. It was a sort of signature. After a couple of years thinking about it, I got it cut to chin-length; and this was before advancing age might have inspired me to make this move.
One of my buddies kept saying to me back then: "It's just hair. It'll grow back."
This morning I started wondering how many decisions I ponder lengthily actually fall into the no-big-deal-it's-only-hair category, which is to say: have fairly brief consequences even if the choice goes bad.
I remember torment over deciding whether to take another year of French in ninth grade. Definitely a haircut decision. I've seen people go into stall mode over which book to write next. One of the books would have been well underway in the time spent deciding.
On the other hand, my choice of colleges ultimately affected where I would live and who I would marry, among other things.
It's almost never possible to have all the data for a decision.
One small test is to ask: is it just hair? will it grow back?
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For decades, I had long straight hair. It was a sort of signature. After a couple of years thinking about it, I got it cut to chin-length; and this was before advancing age might have inspired me to make this move.
One of my buddies kept saying to me back then: "It's just hair. It'll grow back."
This morning I started wondering how many decisions I ponder lengthily actually fall into the no-big-deal-it's-only-hair category, which is to say: have fairly brief consequences even if the choice goes bad.
I remember torment over deciding whether to take another year of French in ninth grade. Definitely a haircut decision. I've seen people go into stall mode over which book to write next. One of the books would have been well underway in the time spent deciding.
On the other hand, my choice of colleges ultimately affected where I would live and who I would marry, among other things.
It's almost never possible to have all the data for a decision.
One small test is to ask: is it just hair? will it grow back?
Tuesday, June 16, 2009
Marketing Art
Bold self-expression can be even more satisfying when you're able to make a living at it: that way you can do it full-time, and get it out into the world.
Jackie Battenfield is an expert on how visual artists can do that. Writers and other artists can learn from her as well; I've attended a couple of her classes and found her thinking inspiring and her suggestions specific and useful--and applicable to what I'm doing as a writer.
Now she has a book out: The Artist's Guide: How to Make a Living Doing What You Love. She knows what she's writing about. She has been a self-supporting painter for over 20 years, and launched her career visiting Washington galleries with newborn in tow.
You might also have a look at Jackie Battenfield's art. I particularly like her Water Series.
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Jackie Battenfield is an expert on how visual artists can do that. Writers and other artists can learn from her as well; I've attended a couple of her classes and found her thinking inspiring and her suggestions specific and useful--and applicable to what I'm doing as a writer.
Now she has a book out: The Artist's Guide: How to Make a Living Doing What You Love. She knows what she's writing about. She has been a self-supporting painter for over 20 years, and launched her career visiting Washington galleries with newborn in tow.
You might also have a look at Jackie Battenfield's art. I particularly like her Water Series.
Monday, June 15, 2009
Bold Proposition
I just made a daring offer to an eminent institution of higher learning. I won't burden you with the details just now. But I'm feeling very pleased with my ingenuity, resourcefulness, and daring. There's satisfaction in coming up with and presenting a bold idea, whether it works out or not.
I remember when I was an undergrad at Duke, I wrote a letter to the local Durham Herald, offering to write editorials for them for $10 apiece. I pointed out that during my summer as an intern at Star-News in my hometown of Wilmington, I'd written editorials and received a $5 bonus for each one that was published; and they'd published a stack of them, including my wisdom on the Kennedy-Kopechne-Chappaquiddick situation. (I was against it.)
The Durham editor didn't take me up on my offer, but wrote me a most charming letter. Now the head of that paper is a guy who graduated in my class and started work at the same time I did at The Raleigh Times. A lot of newspapers have rolled out between then and now. I still cherish the memory of that offer I made back then, as much as I do other little adventures that did work out.
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I remember when I was an undergrad at Duke, I wrote a letter to the local Durham Herald, offering to write editorials for them for $10 apiece. I pointed out that during my summer as an intern at Star-News in my hometown of Wilmington, I'd written editorials and received a $5 bonus for each one that was published; and they'd published a stack of them, including my wisdom on the Kennedy-Kopechne-Chappaquiddick situation. (I was against it.)
The Durham editor didn't take me up on my offer, but wrote me a most charming letter. Now the head of that paper is a guy who graduated in my class and started work at the same time I did at The Raleigh Times. A lot of newspapers have rolled out between then and now. I still cherish the memory of that offer I made back then, as much as I do other little adventures that did work out.
Friday, June 12, 2009
Dare to Unwind: It's a Summery Thing to Do
From the Daily Om, "Tied in Knots":
"We don’t have to tie ourselves in knots. Instead, we can let the ribbons of our energy unfurl to gracefully direct us...."
I think that probably means: go swimming. Which I did in the ocean at Wrightsville Beach, NC, on Saturday. Bright sun, low tide with big waves breaking close to shore and a current running parallel with the beach. Briefly chilly, then blissful, with wonderful ocean sand underfoot. I could feel my ribbons of energy unfurling....
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"We don’t have to tie ourselves in knots. Instead, we can let the ribbons of our energy unfurl to gracefully direct us...."
I think that probably means: go swimming. Which I did in the ocean at Wrightsville Beach, NC, on Saturday. Bright sun, low tide with big waves breaking close to shore and a current running parallel with the beach. Briefly chilly, then blissful, with wonderful ocean sand underfoot. I could feel my ribbons of energy unfurling....
A Morning Sabbatical
Self-employment is supposed to offer the advantage of setting one's own hours. In practice, most of us work a lot more hours than we would on a job.
This morning, however, I went hog-wild; stayed home and picked up around the house and did a summer's worth of ironing, etc. You might not view that as the boldest move; but boldness is relative. For me, it was an adventure. And I'm now feeling quite satisfied and accomplished.
Thursday, June 11, 2009
A Technique for Freeing the Imagination
This is a rerun of a guest post I did a while back for Mystic-Lit:
Writing or practice of any art form—or, for that matter, any kind of problem-solving—relies heavily on one intermediate skill: Greasing the Elements.
I realized this while doing the Word Jumbles in my local News & Observer. As you probably know, these puzzles are scrambled letters that must be unscrambled to make a word.
The hardest way to do a Word Jumble is to sit and think hard in a methodical way. That is finally effective and so it’s my fallback strategy, but it’s the slow laborious route: the number 3 way.
The quickest method (number 1) is when the word magically leaps out of the jumble at first glance. That works with both art and word puzzles. The answer simply appears. With fiction, these pop-up ideas usually pop out of prepared ground: I’ve worked on the scene, then put it aside and done something physical like driving or gardening, organizing objects or taking a shower. Then the ideas burst forth.
But of course that doesn’t always happen. So there’s number 2, the middle way, the Greasy Elements method, halfway between magic and hard labor. Using this technique with a Word Jumble, I view the five or six letters as big detached forms, each about six feet high. Pale green and translucent, as it happens, but that’s not so important. What’s important is that they’re slippery and wobbly. They slip and slide all over each other until they come to rest in the right order. Takes a minute longer than magic but is faster and more effective than say trying out each letter as Letter One and so on….
So in writing fiction, it works the same way. Let the elements of a scene—the people and place and circumstances slip and slide all over each other until they click into place on the page.
Remember the movie Apollo 13? Tom Hanks and crew were up in the spacecraft and something went wrong, and he radioed in an unforgettable tone of totally-controlled emotion: “Houston, we have a problem.”
What happened then on the ground was that the head guy threw together in a pile all the physical elements that the astronauts had available to them in their cabin. Engineers gathered around that pile of stuff and started fitting pieces together in different combos. They pulled together the gizmo that was needed and just in the nick of time, and were able to tell the characters in the air what to do.
That’s how it works with objects. With words and ideas, it’s the same: you throw the elements in a heap and see how things act on each other and combine and recombine. It's amazing what energy they carry.
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Writing or practice of any art form—or, for that matter, any kind of problem-solving—relies heavily on one intermediate skill: Greasing the Elements.
I realized this while doing the Word Jumbles in my local News & Observer. As you probably know, these puzzles are scrambled letters that must be unscrambled to make a word.
The hardest way to do a Word Jumble is to sit and think hard in a methodical way. That is finally effective and so it’s my fallback strategy, but it’s the slow laborious route: the number 3 way.
The quickest method (number 1) is when the word magically leaps out of the jumble at first glance. That works with both art and word puzzles. The answer simply appears. With fiction, these pop-up ideas usually pop out of prepared ground: I’ve worked on the scene, then put it aside and done something physical like driving or gardening, organizing objects or taking a shower. Then the ideas burst forth.
But of course that doesn’t always happen. So there’s number 2, the middle way, the Greasy Elements method, halfway between magic and hard labor. Using this technique with a Word Jumble, I view the five or six letters as big detached forms, each about six feet high. Pale green and translucent, as it happens, but that’s not so important. What’s important is that they’re slippery and wobbly. They slip and slide all over each other until they come to rest in the right order. Takes a minute longer than magic but is faster and more effective than say trying out each letter as Letter One and so on….
So in writing fiction, it works the same way. Let the elements of a scene—the people and place and circumstances slip and slide all over each other until they click into place on the page.
Remember the movie Apollo 13? Tom Hanks and crew were up in the spacecraft and something went wrong, and he radioed in an unforgettable tone of totally-controlled emotion: “Houston, we have a problem.”
What happened then on the ground was that the head guy threw together in a pile all the physical elements that the astronauts had available to them in their cabin. Engineers gathered around that pile of stuff and started fitting pieces together in different combos. They pulled together the gizmo that was needed and just in the nick of time, and were able to tell the characters in the air what to do.
That’s how it works with objects. With words and ideas, it’s the same: you throw the elements in a heap and see how things act on each other and combine and recombine. It's amazing what energy they carry.
Wednesday, June 10, 2009
Just Do It?
"Just Do It" is a popular piece of advice (as well as a great advertising catch phrase.) And it has value. It can cut through a lot of inner garbage and unnecessary preliminary hurdles.
It's also true that saying "just" does not make a difficult thing into "a snap" that takes no time or effort at all.
I've been counseled to "just get up and ski," as if "just" alone would keep me upright and instantly able to advance beyond snowplow technique, never mind the icy conditions and stinging sleet.
I've been told that all I have to do is "just sit down and write it," when what the guy wanted was for me to turn a talk I'd given into a paper for his journal for free.
I've been advised to just get a fellowship to finish a book. Well, I've managed to get a number of fellowships, and each one has taken quite a few days of work and then months or years of waiting. Sometimes it has taken being rejected a number of times before getting the award. Some plums I've gone after continue to resist me. I've been told in advance that I don't have the proper academic credentials and that my project doesn't match their parameters. Once, after massive effort and long wait, I was put on an a waiting list, but no one dropped out, and so I reapplied and won on my second try the following year. I did finally get there, but it wasn't a matter of "just" filling out a few forms.
Probably you too have been told to just relax, just tell so-and-so what's-what, just stop thinking so much, just get a master's degree, have another baby, and get a grip.
"Just" can cut through the procrastination and rationalizing. After that, it helps to apply strategy, effort, patience, hope, and the courage it sometimes takes to keep going. It helps to know in advance that it's not always "just" a "piece of cake" and easy as pie. It's also important to give ourselves proper credit for our work along the way.
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It's also true that saying "just" does not make a difficult thing into "a snap" that takes no time or effort at all.
I've been counseled to "just get up and ski," as if "just" alone would keep me upright and instantly able to advance beyond snowplow technique, never mind the icy conditions and stinging sleet.
I've been told that all I have to do is "just sit down and write it," when what the guy wanted was for me to turn a talk I'd given into a paper for his journal for free.
I've been advised to just get a fellowship to finish a book. Well, I've managed to get a number of fellowships, and each one has taken quite a few days of work and then months or years of waiting. Sometimes it has taken being rejected a number of times before getting the award. Some plums I've gone after continue to resist me. I've been told in advance that I don't have the proper academic credentials and that my project doesn't match their parameters. Once, after massive effort and long wait, I was put on an a waiting list, but no one dropped out, and so I reapplied and won on my second try the following year. I did finally get there, but it wasn't a matter of "just" filling out a few forms.
Probably you too have been told to just relax, just tell so-and-so what's-what, just stop thinking so much, just get a master's degree, have another baby, and get a grip.
"Just" can cut through the procrastination and rationalizing. After that, it helps to apply strategy, effort, patience, hope, and the courage it sometimes takes to keep going. It helps to know in advance that it's not always "just" a "piece of cake" and easy as pie. It's also important to give ourselves proper credit for our work along the way.
Tuesday, June 09, 2009
Monday, June 08, 2009
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Sunday, June 07, 2009
Point of View
As any writer of fiction knows, a moment can look radically different from each different point of view.
Here's my little-rubber-kayak level point of view of a "flat" lake.
Big paddle.
Tiny sailboat.
Significant-sized waves.
I like this particular viewpoint very much. But any time the view's not good, we likely have some option to stand at a slightly different place.
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Here's my little-rubber-kayak level point of view of a "flat" lake.
Big paddle.
Tiny sailboat.
Significant-sized waves.
I like this particular viewpoint very much. But any time the view's not good, we likely have some option to stand at a slightly different place.
Saturday, June 06, 2009
Boldness Is Also in the Details
A great deal of what we do every day can have more meaning and pleasure if we do it in an imaginative, thoughtful, bold way.
Even, for example, a catalog of the most ordinary categories of products can be a delight. Check out the site for the Dutch company Hema. Chill out, breathe, and relax for the few seconds it takes to get rolling.
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Even, for example, a catalog of the most ordinary categories of products can be a delight. Check out the site for the Dutch company Hema. Chill out, breathe, and relax for the few seconds it takes to get rolling.
Friday, June 05, 2009
Bold One-Woman Business Idea
A photographer I know, Artie Dixon, is offering her beautiful second home in the North Carolina mountains for week-long vacations for girlfriends--with tour guide to the sites of the area. So no maps, planning, or GPS is required.
The art-filled 1939 house in Little Switzerland is called Sky Blue, and its stone patio opens onto wide mountain vistas.
Three upcoming weeks have themes: Mountain Crafts, Greek Cooking (Artie's maiden name was Markatos), and Learning Photography. The area also has much to see and do: Penland School of Crafts, riding, hiking, waterfalls, the very groovy town of Asheville, Blue Ridge Parkway, the nearby mountain village.
The house is available for conventional rentals. But planned themed weeks with guide is a new twist. I like the idea and the enterprise involved.
It reminds me of my businessman father who turned his own outgrown tuxedos into a formal wear rental business that eventually wholesaled throughout the Southeast.
The questions to ask oneself in order to do something similar are:
*what do I have?
*what do I know?
*what can I offer?
*what do I have to offer that others need?
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The art-filled 1939 house in Little Switzerland is called Sky Blue, and its stone patio opens onto wide mountain vistas.
Three upcoming weeks have themes: Mountain Crafts, Greek Cooking (Artie's maiden name was Markatos), and Learning Photography. The area also has much to see and do: Penland School of Crafts, riding, hiking, waterfalls, the very groovy town of Asheville, Blue Ridge Parkway, the nearby mountain village.
The house is available for conventional rentals. But planned themed weeks with guide is a new twist. I like the idea and the enterprise involved.
It reminds me of my businessman father who turned his own outgrown tuxedos into a formal wear rental business that eventually wholesaled throughout the Southeast.
The questions to ask oneself in order to do something similar are:
*what do I have?
*what do I know?
*what can I offer?
*what do I have to offer that others need?
Thursday, June 04, 2009
Thanks!
My first-ever Big Bold Sale on my critiquing services, announced here three days ago, is getting a terrific and very gratifying response: lots of writers I haven't worked with before, some interesting and talented and quick-to-take-action folks from all over the country, have been touch.
Not every bold experiment works out well, as we all know. If they all did, there wouldn't be any risk or boldness involved.
So it's very gratifying when it goes well. And it encourages the next venture. Makes me want to try something truly daring, riding the momentum.
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Not every bold experiment works out well, as we all know. If they all did, there wouldn't be any risk or boldness involved.
So it's very gratifying when it goes well. And it encourages the next venture. Makes me want to try something truly daring, riding the momentum.
Wednesday, June 03, 2009
Feel Fantastic
The new July issue of Success Magazine (the one with "GO FOR BOLD" in orange type on the cover) has a simple, effective idea in its list of action items on the last page.
Essentially it's this: in planning your day, identify the action that would make you feel fantastic to get done today. Do that first.
If you give it a shot, or already have experience with this, please let us know how it works for you.
I've sometimes done first "the thing I feel most nervous about." But that's such a negative way to code it. Even so, doing it makes me feel fantastic. I'm going to hang onto the "fantastic" label for this strategy.
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Essentially it's this: in planning your day, identify the action that would make you feel fantastic to get done today. Do that first.
If you give it a shot, or already have experience with this, please let us know how it works for you.
I've sometimes done first "the thing I feel most nervous about." But that's such a negative way to code it. Even so, doing it makes me feel fantastic. I'm going to hang onto the "fantastic" label for this strategy.
Tuesday, June 02, 2009
Red Chair, Blue Language
My office partner Carrie who owns the building is having the place spiffed up and repainted. In this process several issues of boldness have arisen.
Most noticeably, the front porch chair has gone from pale yellow to poppy red.
And then yesterday, a wee incident raised for me some thoughts about differences in style. Carrie and I both tend to overworry about whether we've stepped on someone's toes. I also see myself as a fairly mild-mannered sort.
I had gradually glazed out on the fact that there had been workmen all over the building for days. And then my copier/printer got snarled-up and refused to proceed. I went over to the rebellious thing, which sits just below a window, and tried to fix it, all the while unleashing a staccato of the harsh and obscene language I reserve for malfunctioning machines. Didn't realize that I was speaking within inches of the nose of the man working on the windowsill on the other side of the glass. After all, we'd been professionally ignoring each other quite successfully for days.
My response to this realization, not so bold: I turned around and walked out of the room. A little embarrassing, a lot funny: that was my reaction.
I told Carrie the amusing news. She thought it was funny too. Then she went out and assured the largely Spanish-speaking crew that all was well and they hadn't done anything wrong and that it was just me having an outburst over mechanical difficulties. She explained to me privately that they're a particularly sweet and sensitive bunch of guys.
I'm not accustomed to being on the raunchy side of such moments, especially with construction workers. Not used to being apologized for, or to finding such a small awkward moment increasingly hilarious. I'm not sure where the path of proper boldness lay here, but find it refreshing to be, for a change, the mouthy brash explosive one.
Monday, June 01, 2009
My Big Bold Sale
In honor of our recession, I'm having my first-ever sale. Here's the deal:
I’m offering a June-only reduced fee for all my manuscript and consulting services for writers.
I've cut my rates by 40% for the next four weeks.
For critiques on manuscripts, fiction and nonfiction, and for consultations on the writing business, I’m charging 40% off the rates listed on my website. Minimums are also lowered 40%.
Writers I've worked with as clients have published with major book houses including Simon & Schuster, Wiley, Workman, and St. Martin's, as well as smaller presses, literary journals, magazines (Gourmet, Newsweek) and newspapers. (Results not typical)
Feel free to tell your students, colleagues, and writer friends about this one-time opportunity for ridiculously low-cost, high-quality literary criticism. A recession is no time to hold back on creativity.
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I’m offering a June-only reduced fee for all my manuscript and consulting services for writers.
I've cut my rates by 40% for the next four weeks.
For critiques on manuscripts, fiction and nonfiction, and for consultations on the writing business, I’m charging 40% off the rates listed on my website. Minimums are also lowered 40%.
Writers I've worked with as clients have published with major book houses including Simon & Schuster, Wiley, Workman, and St. Martin's, as well as smaller presses, literary journals, magazines (Gourmet, Newsweek) and newspapers. (Results not typical)
Feel free to tell your students, colleagues, and writer friends about this one-time opportunity for ridiculously low-cost, high-quality literary criticism. A recession is no time to hold back on creativity.
Sunday, May 31, 2009
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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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
Friday, May 29, 2009
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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"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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