Behind the Refrigerator

An event high on my scale of domestic boldness: this afternoon Husband Bob and I moved our fridge and cleaned the coils in the back in the hopes that this will take care of a popsicle crisis.

I am devoted to consuming coconut popsicles (up to three a day) of the Whole Foods house brand called 365. Lately these personally important items have been getting melty in our freezer.

Before tackling the fridge coils, I tried a different experiment. Two weeks ago, when there was snow here, I buried a popsicle in snow. My fallacious logic was that the snow was frozen and would therefore refreeze the popsicle into a solid item.

Not so. What I dug up was a sack of unappetizing milky liquid.

So I did some Internet research and learned that the problem might be dusty coils. For a person who doesn't dust things that are in easy reach, this is large.

Also, we live in a semi-old log house with two mastiffs. The layers of dust on the floor behind the fridge had to be scraped loose with a sharp object.

I'm eager to see if this cleaning thing works. Will report. If it does, it could encourage further domestic boldness.

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The Bad News, The Good News

A radically mixed day: two pieces of bad news and one piece of good news. All coming from different directions and none of them my story to tell. The bad news is about friends' very difficult situations.

So I have today the challenge of holding hot and cold in my hand at the same time. Dealing with each requires different strategies.

In practice, this adds up to flicking back and forth, back and forth, in my attention.

It also adds up to: very preoccupied. Tried to drive to the Post Office and passed it twice before I remembered to turn in. Keep staring at my laptop and waiting for it to do things I haven't told it to do.

I have to say that sadness is getting a whole lot more time. That and a feel of dislocation: shiftings just beneath the earth's crust.

I guess my plan is to keep on with the back-and-forth -- let it have its way -- and drive carefully.

--and then, of course, I googled and found an idea worth considering. I didn't agree with everything in this health blog post, but I did like the idea of focusing on feelings of love for all concerned.



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Wisdom from Mystic Pizza

As I've often mentioned here, I have a K&W cafeteria lunch once a month with half a dozen people with metaphysical interests: Mystic Pizza.

Today was the day and here's the report from the lunchtime mystics (three of whom are pictured below.)
*Instead of flight or fight in a moment of confrontation, try gently shifting your weight from side to side. One could consider this dodging. But in fact it's just giving yourself a bit of room and activity other than darting away or getting in someone's face.
*Things work out better if you let people do you favors and you pick up some of their slack. (Some of the assembled have a hard time with this in practice.)
*Tiny little barely-conscious thoughts can cause our intended actions to get hung up. Invite the thoughts to show themselves.
*Stay fluid.

Sounds more like a self-improvement, how-to-live group, I know. But the discussions included much about the mysteries of energy.

Mystics here with me at this shot at the K&W. Thomas Griggs, a leadership consultant, and Rolfer Marsha Presnell-Jennette. Photo by author, shaman, and computer person, Kelley Harrell.

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All Us Chickens

Just came from the final celebration of my 61st Jubilee. It was the winter-quarter birthday brunch of six buddies who have been celebrating our aging since most of us were in our twenties.

One gift I received was particularly bold and imaginative: fresh eggs from Stephanie's chickens. She keeps them in her mid-town backyard, as pets. I like that.

After all, where is it written that we should be limited to cats and dogs and ferrets and iguanas as animal companions?

She did have to re-home a rooster after it took to waking central Raleigh far too early. But otherwise, she's found them very good company, clucking and burbling and strutting around.

I learned this morning a few things about chicken care: mainly that it's important this time of year to make sure that they're combs don't get cold; they're prone to frostbite.

I'm tempted to knit a few hen hats for the next round of birthdays. But that might be sliding past bold to eccentric. Can't have that.

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The Fine Example of Lord Keillor of Wobegon

Last night Husband Bob and I went to see a live TV showing of Prairie Home Companion at a local movie theatre: a perfect celebration of Bob's 68th birthday yesterday.

It was sublimely good and completely heart-warming: a winning combo that Garrison Keillor produces weekly without fail.

Here's why I mention him again on a blog broadly devoted to boldness and marching to your own drummer, artistic and otherwise. GK has made an immense success and ongoing contribution based on an idea that at first probably didn't sound like a sure-fire national hit. Think about it: a two hour radio show about an imaginary Minnesota town, two cowboys, a lovelorn private eye, ketchup, duct tape, and hopeful gospel music. A show based on one sorta odd guy being relentlessly himself. I'd hate to have to pitch it in a meeting.

And I'm continuously inspired as well as delighted by both the show and the example.

Encore performance of the HDTV showing: Feb. 9 at a theatre reasonably near you.

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Dabbling in Retail

Recently I decided to sell some clothes on consignment. In the past I've taken my physically or emotionally outgrown items to the Goodwill. This new possibility felt to me a small enticing adventure. I grew up in the midst of the clothing business. My parents owned stores in Wilmington, NC. And I feel I know a tiny bit about merchandising.

Well, dammit. Neither consignment store I tried wanted a single piece. One place said that my items were "too matoo-ah." The girl there pointed out that their target audience is high school girls. It is true that I'm 61, but my husband thinks I dress like a high school girl.

So I went to a consignment store for classic clothes, thinking surely they'd like my tastefully mature collection. There, I was given no reason for the total rejection, and didn't ask for one. Apparently I'm neither a high school girl nor a classic.

Next stop is either the back door loading dock of the Goodwill-- or Sotheby's. I'll show 'em.

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The Driving Decision

Still snowy here in the unaccustomed South, and we each have to make the decision about when it's safe to drive. It varies, of course, with the vehicle and the address.

To get from my house to a paved and cleared road, requires covering the long downhill curving driveway with woods on either side, followed by a hard right onto a second dirt road. Should one slide straight across this fork while trying to turn, one enters the woods airborne and enjoys a three to four foot drop when a tree finally intervenes.

The second dirt road leads across a curving dam with a pond on one side and drop-with-creek-and-woods-at-the-bottom on the other.

Next is the winding uphill for another half mile, followed by a turn onto a paved-but-not-scraped lane, and then a three mile paved-but-not-scraped country highway.

I've never gotten around to getting a four-wheel drive -- it freezes here so rarely -- so it's just me and the dainty floral Carmella Camry making this trip. I take a fairly conservative approach. Not what anyone would call bold.

As usual, I consider this minor matter a metaphor for larger decisions. At what point, does cabin fever trump risk? When do the risks outweigh the gains? Well, it's almost never clear. So we just decide and act and, ideally, don't look back.

It's the hidden boldness of daily life, these little decisions.

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My Snow Experiment

We have the rare pleasure here of snow these last few days. It was two and a half days before I could get from our house on a hilly dirt road through woods to the main road. So I've had a cosy few days, with a little cross-country skiing, up until the bindings broke on one of my 20 year old skis.

Seeking other ways to play in the snow, I hit upon my experiment. I decided to do the garden fertilizing I'd neglected to do in October, figuring that the slow melt of the snow would remove any need to water.

This isn't the right time of year, and some of this fertilizer is the weekly type, some the acid type, and some is the kind that burns if it isn't watered enough.

We'll see how it goes in the spring, if I remember what I put where. This is what I mean when I say in my website bio that I'm a slapdash gardener. Given my approach, I think it's bold of me to keep at it at all.

But I've always felt that anything worth doing was worth doing badly. Otherwise, how would we ever get started at anything new?

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The Kaizen Way

This afternoon I heard for the first time about how a Japanese business management technique can be usefully adapted to making positive changes in one's life.

Like lightning, I rushed to Google this new word: kaizen.

The basic idea, as explained in One Small Step Can Change Your Life: The Kaizen Way by Robert Maurer, is to make improvements in such tiny increments that resistance doesn't bother to kick in.

I love this idea. It could explain the ancient puzzle described by Paul in Romans 7:19 "the good I would do, I do not." I've never understood why it was often difficult and sometimes apparently impossible for me to do the "good I would do."

If I make too large a resolution, fight or flight kicks in and wins. Nothing changes.

Here's the story of a man who tried this approach and found it gradually and easily quite successful: How to Overcome Hesitation, Fear, and Laziness to Achieve Your Goals.

I have had an idea that the minimal approach works with writing: I'm ever suggesting to clients and workshop participants that they make a commitment of, say, 5 minutes a day. Nobody fights writing for 5 minutes, and once you've begun you tend to keep going on a lot of days. And even doing things 5 minutes at a time, they eventually get done.

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Before There Was AVATAR

If you're needing an inspiring role model, read the Wired Magazine career history of Avatar director James Cameron. What a combo of persistence, courage, and inventiveness! But to make that feel real and encouraging, I always need to know the details.

Thirty-three years ago, he was a young truck driver who went to see Star Wars and came out angry that he hadn't made the movie. So he raised $20,000 from some dentists to make a sci-fi short, that then led him to the next step...and some of the steps from there to Terminator to Titanic to Avatar have not been so easy.

I'm impressed that he didn't let his imagination shut down when immense amounts of money were riding on a project and things weren't going well. That's some grace under pressure.

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Self-Defeating Thoughts 4

Okay, it's Monday at the office, time: 7:36 p.m. I haven't had a self-defeating thought all day. Not one.

Maybe it's not just work that keeps them at bay. Maybe it's concentration, a strong focus.

But I can't be this focused all the time. Obviously I need a leisure time strategy as well. Will ponder this. Am open to ideas that might be of use to me and other readers.

I do know that substituting a positive thought works some of the time. Maybe that practice could take hold and start to happen automatically.

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How to Save the World

Turning through an old issue of Metropolis magazine -- "Architecture*Culture*Design-- last night, I came across an interview with a wise furniture designer, Bertjan Pot. He said this:

"I think the best thing you can give to the world is the thing you do best. And if that is making pretty tables, then let it be pretty tables."


And welcome to new regular here, Ketchup.

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Self Defeating Thoughts 3

It's the first weekend since I've been writing down self-defeating thoughts--as a way to get rid of them. This process of "therapeutic homework" continues to be an education.

Obviously, I don't have a big enough sample to claim I've discovered a pattern. But I do notice that I've written down many more of them today Saturday --and it's only 4 o'clock--than in several weekdays combined. What's different: I'm not at work today. I'm guessing that without the tight focus of work my mind can stir up more trouble. (And I just recently ran across the term "leisure illness," referring to getting headaches, colds, etc., on taking time off.)

What also interests me is the fact that I'm having a good day. If I weren't keeping tabs, I'd barely have registered most of the bits of self-sabotage. But I suspect that they have a cumulative effect anyway.

Another finding that surprises me: these thoughts are very diverse. Ranging from telling myself that I won't get a grant I've applied for, to remembering saying the wrong thing to someone about 15 years ago, to grandiose expectations of myself and what I should be doing. Also, a couple of times I've imagined someone doing something to make me mad, and then had an imaginary argument about it, the entire scenario a fabrication. I have to ask myself why I would take the trouble to manufacture that last one.

Just had another S.D. Thought--"What am I doing blogging about my mental health when I should be helping Haitians?"

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Self-Defeating Thoughts 2

Yesterday I mentioned that I had begun writing down my self-defeating thoughts and finding that the process of watching for them seemed to make them occur a great deal less-- in fact, hardly at all.

Important addendum: this morning I worked steadily through my forty-some e-mails with no procrastinating at all about the more complicated ones. This is seriously unusual. I think there's a connection.

My psychologist husband suggested to me a while back that I write down my obsessive thoughts. My reaction: omigod, I'd be doing nothing but writing repeating thoughts. I didn't even try it. Clearly, I should have.

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Self-Defeating Thoughts

Tuesday morning my shrink suggested I write down any self-defeating thoughts I have in the course of the day. I can't honestly say that I've had any since then. That's three days without. I'm impressed. Who knew a cure could be so easy? Try it. And, if you will, share how it works for you.

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Rethinking the Concept of "Being Chicken"

Consider the lovely South African guinea hen. Here's a bird that's actually used as a "watchdog" on farms.

Not that she's fierce. Instead she has a lot to say. She's so attentive and ready to give voice that she can alert a farmer to any little disruption in the night. And warn off an intruder.

Why does this come to mind? My office partner and pal Carrie Knowles made this watercolor monoprint a few months ago while working at The Artists' Press in Mpumalanga, South Africa. (She was in the country advising on strategies for supporting local artists and developing the economic impact of the arts.)

This print is one piece in a show Carrie has just hung at Raleigh restaurant Zely & Ritz. You're invited to the opening on Saturday January 30, from 4 to 6, should you happen to be in this part of the US at that time. Or for more info on Carrie's work, guinea hens or otherwise, she welcomes your questions at cjknowles@earthlink.net.

I intend to remember this bird, even after the print has moved on. If I ever have the self-defeating thought that I'm too chicken to do what I want, I'm going to remind myself that some chickens rule and they don't have to become bears or lions to do it. Don't let anybody tell you otherwise.

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Meditation in Motion

At Saturday's workshop, we spent a little time on the use of simple physical jobs as a form of meditation to improve our writing. As in: do a little writing, do a little laundry or sweeping or sorting, then write some more. Once we've cranked up the writing, then the rumination continues, in a more relaxed and less conscious and more wide-reaching way, while we're doing the housekeeping task.

To demonstrate, I brought along several pounds of bright plastic beads of dozens of different colors and shapes. I ladled out a couple of good handfuls to each participant and asked them to sort for a while and then go back to their writing. It's amazing how a "mindless" meditative interlude stirs the imagination and problem-solving abilities of someone who has already fed in the basic facts.

I used to do a fair amount of advertising copywriting. For a while, I felt that I was so-so just-adequate at it. Then I started meditating, and I got to be pretty good.

What I'd do is read the material on the product or service, then meditate for half an hour with a mental focus that didn't allow me to cogitate on the ad job. Often a headline or two for an ad would pop into my head just as I ended my meditation. And even if it didn't, I came back to the work more relaxed.

One of the writers at the workshop said that she keeps a huge jigsaw puzzle going in the room where she works. Now and then she'll loosen up her mind again with a puzzle break, which I think is a wonderful and pleasant strategy.



In other news, here's a good quote, passed on from Mamie of Can I Do It?:

Most obstacles melt away when we make up our minds to walk boldly through them.
- Orison Swett Marden


And welcome to Alexandre Ferrari.

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A Writing Schedule

Oh, shucks. I thought I was about to shut down and go home for the day and then I realized: not yet.

Saturday at the workshop I taught, I asked participants to devise and make a commitment to a realistic "sustainable" schedule for doing their own writing.

At the same time, I silently made a new commitment to my own. I vowed I would do some work on my own writing (in addition to critiquing manuscripts, meeting with writer-clients) on Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. At least.

Here it is Monday, at 6:31 and I haven't yet done it.

So...reckon I'll get to it now.

Care to make such a commitment yourself? Or report on how yours is working out?

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A Morning with the Ganges

It's Saturday morning and I'm in the midst of leading a workshop called Get Your Ganges On. We're now spending about 15 minutes writing, so this space is where I've turned. The point of the class is to help people draw on their most powerful inner resources in doing their work.

I'm finding it exciting. As always, the teacher has to relearn. And this is a very interesting group. I've heard a couple of new ideas, new work strategies, I want to take home with me.

The exercise we're now doing (or the others are, anyway) is about how each one views their invisible partner in writing, whether it's called God or the unconscious or Higher Power or something else.

I believe in God and what I see is a river: thus the Ganges in the title. This class is sponsored by the Resource Center for Women and Ministry in the South. And there's a fire in the fireplace behind me. I'm going to be interested in what the other folks here have to say.

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Getting Focused

I keep ducking out of the task before me today to cruise celebrity gossip web sites. Partly because I've worked too much lately and partly because of the disaster in Haiti.

Here's the Haiti connection: when something huge is going on, it feels wrong not to be somehow involved in the moment. It reminds me of the feeling I had once in the early 70s when I was working as a reporter for the local afternoon paper, The Raleigh Times. Some big local story broke; I have a vague memory of a hijacking attempt at the airport. I was working on another story and wasn't shifted to the big news of the day. In the newsroom I was surrounded by people madly working at deadline on this one overwhelming event. It made what I was doing feel trivial, or disrespectful, or just beside the point.

Curiously the opposite was true during the 9/11 morning. I was creating a set of book club questions about themes in my novel Sister India. I learned that one tower had gone down. Then I went back to work. Somehow the impulse to find a TV to watch felt like prurient interest. (It somehow didn't occur to me that another building might fall. I foolishly optimistically assumed it was over.)

In any case, the fact that my novel was about Hindu-Muslim clashes in an Indian holy city made what I was doing feel intensely relevant.

I have no such feeling about my schedule for today and any connection with the collapsed city of Port-au-Prince. And I'm distracted.

The bold thing -- the right thing -- is to send money, say a prayer, and go back to doing the stuff that is mine to do. Certainly my dawdling at Page Six Celebrity Gossip isn't going to help anything.

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