Mantras For The New Year

January 2, 2019 By in New Year's Mantras Tags: , , , , , , , 2 Comments

I spent a lot of time yesterday trying to think about what my word for this year would be.

People like me who don’t make resolutions sometimes pick a word or a theme to guide them through the year as a kind of north star.

 I was having trouble this year. I shuffled through my Feeling and Needs cards, but nothing resonated. 

Then I noticed a Thich Nat Hahn book on my side table: This Moment Is Full of Wonders.

I flipped through it and found some juicy contenders:

Listen

Mindful

Let go

Be Free Where You Are

Go As A River

Are you sure?

Now Is The Time

This Moment Is Full of Wonders 

No Mud No Lotus

This Is It

 No Mud No Lotus made me smile. Yes, I thought, this is perfect for times when I struggle; for times when I want to jump ship, and abandon the project.

Mud stands for hard work, darkness, not knowing, not being sure. Mud is lack of clarity. 

Clear as mud.

Lotus is the flower, the fruit, the result of the hard work, the deep introspection.

No mud no lotus.

So I decided this would be my mantra for 2019.

But it seemed a little dark, a little hair-shirty.

I needed something for the times when I wasn’t in deep struggle.

This Moment Is Full of Wonders.

I liked that. I liked that a lot. 

I like the word wonder. 

Wonder is an attitude of amazement. It is also a attitude of questioning, of not knowing. And that’s a space I’d like to learn how live in more comfortably, for sure. 

If it became my mantra it could remind me to look for those wonders in every moment. 

I could use it on the yoga mat, This moment is full of wonders, as I’m breathing in a posture. 

This moment is full of wonders as I’m filling the dishwasher. 

This moment is full of wonders as I fold the laundry. 

This moment is full of wonders as I walk Stella through the town and countryside. 

Today I road tested it  as I sat in the periodontist’s chair: This moment is full of wonders: the light glinting off the adjustable lamp, the sand-colored paint on the walls, the sound of the sonic tooth blaster thing, the dentist office’s version of Bohemian Rhapsody playing softly on the radio. 

This moment is full of wonders.

If I were forced to pick just one word for this year though, it would have to be Wonder. 

Wonder in the sense of amazement, like in the Mary Oliver poem where she wants to be “a bride married to amazement.” 

But also Wonder in the sense of curiosity and not-knowing.

So for 2019, it’s 2 mantras and Wonder. I think I’m off to a good start.

Happy New Year.

Goal Update: Hits and Misses

December 27, 2018 By in projects Tags: , , Leave a comment

Hits and Misses:

I blogged, what? Twice? The goal was 8? That was a miss.

I don’t want to let this one go. I am going to try for once a week and set up a Project in Scrivener called 2109 Blog Schedule. Put down all the dates, and then just fill them in.

Might work.

I did nothing toward learning the Excel spreadsheet. That one will roll over into the new year as well. I need some incentive to do this, though.

And while I didn’t learn any new tricks on Scrivener, I did download the latest version, Scrivener 3, and I’ll take that.

I’ll give myself a pass with the writing of writing notes. I wrote quite a few but not 6 a week. I did figure out that if I just pre-address and pre-stamp envelopes and leave them lying around with their notecards inside, I’m more likely to scratch something onto one of them at some random moment.

G got me a Sproket printer and I tried it last night and I really like it. It’s a machine that spews out small 2×3 inch pictures. It works through an app on my phone. I took a pic today of Stella sleeping on her back, her legs all splayed out. I think the kids would laugh at this in a note.

I am having a ball compiling my sequences using my new Circa system from Levenger. Big win. Game changer.

While I walked Stella to the Post office today, G took down the tree.

So.

Many.

Needles.

Fell.

Off.

This tree did not last. The guy at the tree farm nicked the bark at the base. I think that was the killing blow. It never took up water. Something happened.

Not a good tree year.

I felt this load lift yesterday when it was finally over. I get exhausted easily at Christmas time. It’s a struggle for me to feel optimistic at this time of year. Whereas at other times of year optimism feels like my natural born state.

The weather is a factor of course, but so is the work involved in keeping traditions going.

All worth it, of course, but still.

I know I am dehydrated. Too much sugar and alcohol.

Time for a re-calibration.

Writing Is Like Cleaning The Toilet

December 18, 2018 By in Blogging, projects, Writing Tags: , , , 2 Comments

I’m having resistance posting on this blog.

So let me remind myself why I set this as a year-end goal in the first place. What was my why for this one? Frankly, I don’t remember. But my 3 main reasons for starting any project are:

1. To see if I can endure or persist over time.

2. To gain some new knowledge or skill.

3. To reduce an irritant.

Which box does blogging regularly check?

Probably persistence, but that’s not the real why.

I think it has more to do with my fear of being judged unkindly.

I need to find a way of defanging this self-limiting belief. I need to tell myself another story, one that will have me approaching the writing of the blog with interest and enthusiasm. Now I approach it like cleaning the toilet. It has to be done, but I don’t want to do it.

I think I am delusional. What I mean by that is I think I can achieve things without doing work.

I am work averse. I believe in magic. Magically, this will happen and I won’t have to suffer. Work makes me question the worth of everything.

“You are defined by what you are willing to struggle for.”

This is a tenet of stoicism. I believe it. It explains a lot of my lack of self-definition. Who am I? What am I willing to struggle for?

I honestly don’t know.

As a young woman, my motivating struggle was freedom and autonomy. I needed to get free of my suffocating family. But once that happened, I still wasn’t free. I was free of them, as people, but I still bore the wounds of bad or non-existent parenting.

Low self-esteem, being the major wound.

Needing to be seen. Another one.

Needing approval. That, too.

So the blogging meets my need to be seen. And sometimes I get positive feedback and that meets my need for approval. But it’s the crippling low self-esteem that creates the avoidance and the resistance when it comes to posting something. The writing has to have a point. And sometimes, or most of the time, what I write seems pointless. Or no. Not pointless, just irrelevant and boring. It’s not helpful. Except to me.

So I figured a positive motivational ploy would be to tell myself there is value in showing people what it looks like to set goals and struggle to achieve them. That a blog devoted to that would have a point. It might even be helpful.

There might be a few people who would enjoy watching the on-going saga of a how a projects develops, thrives or dies. And that’s what I would show here. Show your work, as Austin Kleon advises.

I wish I could say that this articulated blog mission has cured my resistance, but it hasn’t. So far. Maybe I just need a few more thousand repetitions of the mantra: Show your work, show your work.

Self-limiting beliefs are hard to exorcise.

This is what I am currently working on.

Thinking About Planning

December 7, 2018 By in Uncategorized Tags: , , , , Leave a comment

All day I’ve been distracting myself looking at Planners. Paper planners. 

That’s because I’m not really here in my mind. My mind is in North Carolina with G whose father is dying. 

On Monday he left the hospital. He called a halt to all treatments. He said he wanted to go home. He’s not eating or drinking. The family is all there. They’ve said their goodbyes. He started taking morphine this morning. Hospice comes twice a day. 

Stella and I walk.

I teach my classes. 

I write, and meditate, and look at the Christmas tree which has lights but no ornaments on it yet. 

I light the menorah. 

Stella and I watch the news at night.

I’ve been looking at the Circa system in the Levenger catalog. I ordered the Junior size planner and it came the other day. I think it’ll work. We’ll see.

It feels weird to be “planning” my year ahead while looking at photos of a man who has no more need for a planner.

It makes me grateful for my life. 

I have a wonderful life. Even the other day, when I had to have a root canal, I felt so lucky. I have the money to afford a root canal. My endodontist is a complete pro.  The procedure was long but pain-free. 

Today I took my last antibiotic. 

Every night I sleep in a warm soft bed. Every evening  I teach yoga to kind, gentle, generous and caring people. The best people I have ever known. I feel so loved. So appreciated. 

There is no way to plan for this kind of life. This kind of life has to be built choice by choice.  Saying yes to some things, no to others. Saying yes to kindness and patience, and no to irritability and grouchiness. Even when I feel irritable and grouchy. 

It’s a trillion little choices that make a life. Until one day there are no days left in the calendar and nothing left to plan. 

I think all that anyone can ever hope for is that their love goes viral. That everyone they ever encountered felt their kindness, and then spread it to everyone they encountered, and on and on.

I feel this way about Owen. His love was contagious. I caught it, and I intend to spread it. 

On and on, for as long as I can plan.

How Not Writing a Novel During National Novel Writing Month Made Me A Better Writer

December 4, 2018 By in Writing Tags: 1 Comment

 I don’t write novels. Never have. Never will. But every year since 2011 I’ve signed up for NaNoWriMo, and I’ve won it 5 out of those 8 years.

This was a winning year. I validated last Friday and high-fived myself.

I do it mainly to increase my stamina and endurance as a writer. I think of it like treadmill running. It gets me in shape for winter, and the introspective writing months to come.

I hop on Scrivener, set my word goal, and just crank. I get winded, I stall out a lot, but I know I have to hit that 1667 daily word count daily, or else tomorrow there’ll be a deficit to make up.  And if there’s one thing I’ve learned over 8 years of doing this crazy game, it’s that catch-up is a bitch.    

Doing NaNo has taught me tons about how I roll as a writer.

I have learned, for instance, that I am definitely not a coffee shop writer. (I lost the year I tried that.)

And that even though I’m entranced with fountain pens and Moleskines, they are not conducive to serious output, and positively discourage editing.

I have also learned that for me, the best soundtrack for writing is no soundtrack. I require silence to hear the music of my mind. One year I made a playlist on Spotify and I lost that year. And now, every time I hear any of those songs, I get slightly nauseous.

But I have also discovered how I do work best:

First, I need exercise. I do what I call my “Campus Scamper”—a brisk 3 mile hill and step-infested walk around campus.  

Next, I  buy or make a large Americano which I take up to my cozy lair, aka, my bedroom.

If it’s cold out, I turn on the little space heater. I need warmth to write.

I then fire up the diffuser with 4 drops of Eucalyptus Radiata and 4 drops of Helichrysm essential oils. This is my magic “brain blend.” As soon as I smell that, I want to write.

I sit down in my Space Chair and fire up Scrivener, the best writing app in the world, set my 1667 word goal, and crank for as long as it takes.  Ideally, all this goodness happens at the same time every day. For me that time is within 4 hours of getting up. Because after lunch my brain goes offline. 

I love and look forward to this ritual.

This year I called my not-a-novel The Yoga of Everything 2.0.  

Here are some of the things I wrote about:

I wrote about the yoga of boredom, and the yoga of dog training and the yoga of cleaning.  

I tried to figure out the artistry of Haruki Murakami, and I analyzed The Laws of Human Nature by Robert Greene. 

I pondered the point of blogging, and the point of, well, everything.

I beta tested a “metta” project where I telepathically sent a “May you be happy” message to every person I passed on my walk, and tracked the results.

I wrote about signals and all the ways people signal to one another. 

I wrote about paint colors for the dining room

 I asked myself “why?”with an obsession that bordered on neuroticism. 

So now I have 50 thousand words to mine in the coming months for little blog posts and essays. The brain dump is over, the resistance monster has been slain. I’m feeling strong and have honed my endurance. 

I feel in shape and ready for those long winter writing sessions.

I’m even looking forward to them. 

Another NaNoWriMo in the books.

Boo-yah.

Year-End Goals

November 28, 2018 By in projects, Writing Tags: 1 Comment
Year-end goals

I’m now in the home stretch in NaNoWriMo. I’ve no doubt I’ll finish. I have 7K words to go and 3 days to finish, so even though it’s going to be a bit of a crank, if I know anything, it’s how to crank.  

Afterwards, I’ll celebrate, then report here on how it went for me this year. 

I’ve decided that’s what this blog is going to be about from now on: me giving a weekly report on my projects.

I like this use of a blog because I can use it as an accountability tool. 

I’m an Obliger. I need to be held accountable.

There’s only a month left in this year. For some reason, this thought shocks me.  

The other day I decided on some year-end goals.

They are:

1. Win NaNoWriMo

2. Compile my classes and spiral-bind them.

3. Learn 2 new Scrivener skills.

4. Learn to make a spreadsheet in Excel.

5. Blog twice a week, until the end of the year. 

6. Put 6 little notes in the mail each week.

Here are the 3 types of projects I like to take on:

Some sort of endurance challenge where I have to complete something hard over time.

Something that gives me a new skill or new knowledge.

Something that makes my life easier by reducing an irritant.

Right now, winning NaNo is my endurance challenge. Learning Scrivener and Excel will up my skills game. Compiling my classes will definitely make my my life tons easier. I’ll finally be able to locate the hundreds of sequences I’ve compiled over the years.

The blogging and the notes projects represent things I resist. I don’t know why, so I’ll need to think about that, get to the bottom of it.

So that’s the plan for this blog going forward.

Now though, I have to crank words. Next post: How I Won NaNoWriMo in 2018.

Boomer: Big Dog On Campus

September 10, 2018 By in Gratitude, Uncategorized 1 Comment

 

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She made the students look up from their phones and smile at her.

I’d be walking the South Hall Mall and hear an ear-deafening screech from a student, far off in the distance, who had spied her. “Cor-geeeeee!!!!”

Students would mob her like a celebrity. And, like the complete diva she was, she’d sit for their pets dutifully, even stoically, but be relieved when it was over and she could continue her walk.

During many long slogs up Cardiac, zooming cars, with students dangling out the windows, would go by yelling, “I love your dog!!”

She was sparkly. She trotted along briskly, looking happy. People always said it: “She looks so happy!  As if happiness was something very rare to see.

Once, a student wearing pajama bottoms, flops, and a baggy hoodie crouched down and petted her for an unusually long time. When he stood up, he said, “I’ve been struggling. I needed to pet an animal today. Thank you.”

This is the power of a dog. They’re real, non-judgmental, and adoring. When we’re around them we feel more relaxed because we feel accepted unconditionally. And loved unconditionally, despite, and maybe even because of, our character flaws and neuroses.

G wants to get a rescue dog now, and I do too in a lot of ways. But I wonder if I walked a mixed breed dog around town, I’d  get the kind of attention that Boomer drew just because she was that breed, with its distinctive short legs, long body and big ears.

When you have a distinctive breed of dog, people remark on it, ask you about it if they’ve never seen one before.

People come up and talk to you who ordinarily might not. They might be secret fans of the breed. They might have had one themselves at one point, and will want you to know about it, as a point of connection with you: We, the corgi lovers.

So, I don’t know what to do about the next dog. There was something really fun about having a corgi. She elevated my social status. Somehow Boomer made me special because I walked her.

Boomer made me visible.

Now when I walk on campus for exercise, nobody looks up from their phones. Nobody makes eye contact. Nobody says hello. Or just smiles.

But when I had Boomer, they’d shoot her a little smile, or ask to pet her, and I could pretend, just for a moment that I, too, was included in that exchange. That I was seen.

RIP Boomer. You were magic.