Does This Blog Post Make Me Look Fat?

“Living is a form of not being sure, not knowing what next or how. The moment you know how, you begin to die a little. The artist never entirely knows. We guess. We may be wrong, but we take leap after leap in the dark.”   –      Agnes De Mille     If you’re a woman, you’ll understand when I tell you that writing this blog post has been exactly like changing your clothes 17 times before you leave the house. Not pretty. Not easy. You upend your closet looking for something comfortable that also makes you look good, that hides the parts of you that you’re less in awe of.   No. This hasn’t been one of your throw-down-some-thoughts-and-post-it kind of blogs. It’s been more like, Does this blog post make me look fat? Does this blog post reveal the part of me that waits for the sun to go down so I can watch another episode of Scandal? Does this blog post pull the curtains back on the part of me that feels flat, dull and without inspiration? The part of me that wanders around my house doing laundry, washing dishes and surfing the internet because I’m not inspired to do anything else?  The part of me that wants people to see my “good side” so they’ll want to work with me?     Because if it does, I’m in trouble.       That’s why I find this Agnes De Mille quote so beautiful and so troubling. I mean, it’s one thing to do this marvelous work of not knowing, of leaping into the dark on the...

The Challenge of Writing True Stories

When my friend + long time student, Lisa Sadikman asked me if I wanted to participate in a blog hop where writers get a chance to write about their writing process I said sure, then immediately regretted it because I had just promised myself that I wouldn’t say yes to anything more until I’d completed the pile of projects on my desk. But if I’m anything, I’m a girl who stands by her commitments — which isn’t always smart, but in terms of commitments, writing is probably the best thing you could say yes to because everyone knows that those deadlines are everything to getting ink onto the page. So thank you Lisa.  Below are my answers to the four questions traveling from blog to blog. Next week, two wonderful friends of mine and writers — Sherry Richert Belul and Jill Salahub will share their thoughts on writing via their blogs. What am I working on/writing? Most of my writing these days happens in the Wild Writing classes I teach each week here in the Bay Area. For two hours, five mornings a week, I have the pleasure of sitting around a table with 8 other women writing really quickly and really badly. That’s one of the tenants of the class — to write as poorly as possible. It’s not a joke — it’s a totally freeing way of getting past our ingrained attempts at looking good, smart and clever — which is pretty much what we’re trying to do most of the time — on the page and off. It’s unconscious, a throw-back from the days when it was dance or...

On Patience

The other day on a walk, my friend told me that all of the big parts of his life were in flux; housing, work, money, love. None of them felt firmly planted, nothing was certain. And yet with all that uncertainty, he felt really solid. Meditation, walks with his dog in nature, art – – these were the consistents in his life, the things that he could rest in and which sustained him when all about him swirled in change.   I’ve been thinking about my friend as I take a look at the year ahead and the expectations that I have for myself. There’s a tendency for me to plan ahead, to already have 2014 envisioned and ready to roll out; new business ideas, new classes, exciting new projects. Big plans fueled by big ambition – that’s where I’m comfortable – when I’m sinking my teeth into things and making them happen.   But try as I might, that’s not where I am right now. I’m breathing, that’s for certain, and there are some wonderful small projects I’m offering in the New Year, but I’m moving more slowly. The big ideas, the flashy offerings, they’re not crystalized yet – they’re still fuzzy, still being fleshed out. And some of them may never happen. If I sound relaxed about this it’s only because this is what’s been working me for weeks, so I’m getting used to being in this foggy place where I can’t see past my own feet.   I have tried to catapult myself to a “better” place for sure.   In the last three weeks I...

The Gift of Sadness

If you’re a parent, you know how painful it is when your child is sad. What’s the saying? You’re only as happy as your most unhappy child. So when my daughter came home from the first few weeks of the 10th grade this year in tears because she didn’t connect with any of the kids – kids she’d known for her whole life – I felt terrible for her. Day after day I’d pick her up with an upbeat, “how’d it go today?” hoping her mood was like weather and would pass. She’d toss her heavy backpack into the car, slump into the front seat, eyes looking straight ahead and say, “I hate it.” Last year she’d had lots of friends – she’d always had friends; she is a super friendly, easy going girl. But things were different now, plus there’d been so many changes in the last year; her father and I separated, her big sister – who was her best friend – went to college – her boyfriend had graduated and was off to school far away. She’d also had an amazing summer making a lot of new friends – mostly older than her – as a counselor at an outdoors camp. But when she got back to school she was a different person. The school was fine, but she couldn’t connect to any of her old friends. When school started she said, “Mom, I ask myself this question all the time, ‘Who am I?’  I don’t have an answer for that, and that makes me really uncomfortable.” The kid is an old soul; deep, thoughtful. Yes...

Learning To Make Mistakes

“Why do you work so hard?” my friend Deb asked me the other day. “You seem like you’re in such a hurry to get somewhere.”  “I think I’m trying to get to a sense of rest,” I said. “Some place on the other side of all this hard work where I’ll feel calm.” “But you never get there, right?” says Deb with a sinister smile. “Um, no. There’s just more work.”  Damn that Deb. She’s such a smarty pants. Welcome to my magical to-do list that mysteriously grows longer the more tasks I cross out. On the surface I’m a mass of kick back, unruly curls, but on the inside I’m a 7-armed goddess monster who squeezes more out of each day than is sanely possible. A woman who means to take care of her house, her kids, sell her classes, create new products, teach her classes, get to the gym, return emails, phone calls and about 1000 other things that I’m not even going to mention. It’s nutty, and I’m sorry if you feel sick just reading this. I’m even sorrier if you know this world all too well. On top of it, if you’re like me, you’ll cop to a deep need to make everything you do perfect, bullet proof, exceptional. And while it’s not bad to want to create and deliver good things, the anxiety that accompanies this need for perfection is killing me. So this summer I promised myself that I was going to take a break and relax. As fate would have it a juicy writing project came my way and my “free time” evaporated…poof!...